Library Campus Usage Guidelines

Since August 2023, the library’s leadership team has met with various community partners, including Bert Nash’s Homeless Outreach and Mobile Response Teams, and several City of Lawrence staff including Parks and Rec and Homeless Outreach, the City Attorney, and the Lawrence Police Department to work together to make library outdoor spaces as safe as possible for all visitors and patrons.

As you may or may not know, the City of Lawrence owns the Library Plaza. Over the course of many conversations, it became evident that library staff and patrons would benefit greatly from the library being able to adapt and extend its Behavior Policy outside the building and throughout the entire library campus.

Libraries are for everyone and all are welcome at the library and on its campus — just not all behaviors. With this lease, we are better equipped to prevent behavior that disturbs shared use of the library, creates an unsafe environment, impedes the work of library staff, or creates a risk of damage to library property.

This is a process and part of an ongoing community conversation. We appreciate your patience as we navigate our new relationship with the space and roll out our new outdoor behavior guidelines.

If you experience or witness behavior that is cause for safety concern, please report it to the library as soon as safely possible.

Shared Spaces, Shared Stories
A letter from Brad about our Behavior Policy and response to a recent survey

Wednesday, August 23, 2023

Dear Cardholder,

The library conducted a survey earlier this summer to ask for our community’s help to “Design the library of our dreams.” Thank you to the folks who answered our survey. We learned a lot from the feedback we received, and library staff are currently looking at how we can incorporate recommendations from the survey. Lawrence Public Library is an anchor of the community and should be shaped to meet community needs. While some change takes time, some recommendations require immediate action.

In the survey results, we heard a shared concern from some of our cardholders regarding safety at the library. The well-being of everyone who uses the library is of the highest priority. However, we must be transparent and share that some spaces of the library campus are under jurisdiction other than our own. The lawn and parking garage across from the library, for example, are owned by the City of Lawrence. The library is working with the City to better address disruptive behavior in these spaces.

We acknowledge Lawrence community members’ concern for the library to remain a safe and respectful environment for all its users. We are taking action to ensure behavior that disturbs others’ use of the library, creates an unsafe environment, impedes the work of library staff, or creates a risk of damage to library property is not permitted.

We are currently taking the following measures to ensure safety at the library:

• Actively reinforcing our Behavior Policy
• Increasing the presence of library security staff inside and outside of the library building during hours of operation
• Working with city leaders and experts

In the spirit of transparency, I want to be clear that this statement is written in response to behavior and safety concerns expressed by our cardholders. Lawrence Public Library aims to uphold the safety of all walks of life who visit the library. We also work to decrease the stigma against activity which may be alarming and shocking in nature caused by persons experiencing substance use disorder, housing insecurity, mental illness, and/or any reason for distress in a public space, but do not condone disruptive, unsafe, and/or illegal behavior.

Lawrence Public Library would like to extend thanks to our community partners who are helping us in our action steps to keep the library a safe place of shared spaces and shared stories: Bert Nash Community Mental Health Center, City of Lawrence Homeless Programs Team, Lawrence Parks and Recreation, and the Lawrence Police Department.

We acknowledge safety is an ongoing community conversation, and we are committed to addressing concerns and doing all we can to make our spot downtown feel safe for current and future users of our library. We are here for you, we hear you, and we want to continue to hear from you.

If you experience or witness behavior that is cause for safety concern, please report it to the library as soon as safely possible.

Brad Allen
Executive Director, Lawrence Public Library