It was me. I was the one who let the book-stealer leave the library.
Actually, I don't know for a fact that the woman was stealing anything. I do know that she set the alarm off when she left the building, that she kept on walking and that I let her go.
I tried to stop her - when I heard the alarm go off (and it goes off several times a day; usually it's a false alarm), I looked up from behind the information desk and she was already two automatic doors ahead of me. I had to walk right around the desk to get to the entrance/exit, stand in front of the inner automatic door for a second waiting for it to let me out...by then she was already heading around the corner. That's when I thought "I'm not going to go running down the street after her". I was probably also thinking that that would look undignified, that I was leaving the information desk un-manned, that by the time I got someone to help the woman would have gotten even futher away, that it was probably another false alarm.
True, she probably wasn't doing anything wrong except not stopping for the alarm. But she was moving pretty quickly for a short, round person - almost as if she was in a hurry. And the more I think about it, the more likely it seems to me that she was hurrying out of there with an un-issued book.
It made me feel horrible all afternoon. And guilty too.
3 comments:
I'm sorry. This happened to me too. I was at a little branch where they didn't even have a security gate. I was checking stuff in at the desk and listening to a coworker's story - about Buffy, in fact :) - and saw a shifty-eyed girl flipping through the CD rack, then making a weird little dipping motion and heading quickly for the door. My coworker's story was at its most exciting bit (at least, he was rather into it) and he was between me and the door, so I didn't even really try to go after her. The CDs were in "unbreakable" security cases but I doubt that slowed her down once she got her swag home.
It amazes me that library architects/designers don't seem to consider this common occurrence when designing the service desk and exit layout. Form almost always trumps function. A simple gate that locks when the alarm goes off would go a long way to prevent staff like us from a) running and shouting like blithering idiots or b) living with book-stealer-getaway guilt.
I totally agree with the security gate thing. We don't have 'em either, and they would make life so much easier. Although I enjoy variety in my job, security-guarding isn't one of the roles I'm in a hurry to add to my CV...
I don't think you should feel too bad dear... I mean, as you mentioned, she was already quite a ways away. And who knows, maybe she wasn't really the one to steal the book at all and it was simply another false alarm. I do hope you get the book back soon though...
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