Library, Child Pornography, Personal Privacy, First Amendment Rights, Bacon? What?

[Alex]

Originally Posted by tracilicious

I think maybe librarians have good cause to be hyper-aware of suspicious behavior. I've heard loads of stories about people beating off in the aisles or following other patrons around and whatnot. What is it about places where books are that cause the nuts to come out? When I worked at a used bookstore here in Phoenix we always had people jerking off, walking in with socks on their penis and nothing else, pooping in chairs, etc.

Sure, I've dealt with more than my share of library masturbators in my time (a library that doesn't close until midnight really seems to attract them and I spent 4 years closing it). I've dealt with a patron that crapped in his own hand and he smeared it over 15 years worth of The Princeton Review before he was noticed. Book defacers and thieves. Graffiti artists.

I'd not say that a library patron should be able to hide themselves, but I think they are certainly entitled to hide the exact nature of the library resources they are using.

But again, she didn't go out of her way to observe him, she went out of her way to observe what he was looking at. I can imagine all sorts of ways she might have incidentally seen what he was looking at. Except she, in giving her own story, says she was trying to see what he was looking at so all of those theories and hypotheticals are moot.

I also have no idea if the reason I would fire her is the reason the library actually fired her. It may very well have been "bitch went over our heads" retaliation. In which case the only appropriate thing for whoever is in charge of that library to do is say "we apologize, we respectfully offer her job back so that we can fire her for the correct reason."