Hi All,
This is the text from an email that Beth sent to Public Services and we wanted to share it with you. A department head or Public Services / Youth Services staff will address severe body odor issues with patrons, but we thought it would be helpful for you to understand how we try to address the situation with the most positive outcome possible for everyone:
Y’all,
Last night we had a patron with very strong body odor (and some medical issues on top of that) who had to be asked to leave the library. Lydia and Lynne handled the situation and they did a very good job, but I want to put this out there so it’s on all of our radars. I would imagine that this type of thing will only increase in frequency with easy bus access to JPL.
In the same way we’ve had to practice our scripts with behavior, I would like all of us to put on our to-do lists practicing how to handle body odor issues. Like most customer service things, it often matters less what you say, but how you say it.
Please take a look at these best practice scripts from the Librarian’s Guide to Homelessness. Get comfortable with them. Practice.