Saturday, July 12, 2014

Honesty is the best policy

Remember, if you will, the previous post titled "Liberry Lady and the Case of the Bloody Book."  In it, I counseled a library patron about how I would prefer that if he damaged a book, he just be honest about it rather than lying and telling me it was like that when he got it.

Well, fast forward to the other day where this patron came up to me and said, "There's something I need to tell you."
"Yes?" I responded, intrigued about what he was going to say.
"I wanted to let you know, I had a flood in my cell the other day and while I was able to rescue the other books, this one got stuck to the floor and I am very sorry."

Upon examining the book, it wasn't that bad except for the back cover had peeled away where it had been stuck to the floor.  He did, however, bring me all the pieces of the cover. :-)

"I really appreciate your honesty, and the fact that you brought me all the pieces of the book.  Because of that, I will not charge you for this book this time."

The patron was very happy, and I was happy too because he actually listened to me the last time and he made the right decision to be honest about it rather than just putting it in the book drop and hoping we didn't notice.  We followed up with a conversation about proper book storage (not on the floor) and he left with the promise that it wouldn't happen again.

I call that a Library Victory.

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