Brereton admits more staff and security needed

“I can understand a headline saying chaos in Bhagdad but there’s no chaos at the library,” said National Library Information Services  (NALIS) Chairman Bridget Brereton who was responding to reports that the functions at the new facility were out of control in an interview yesterday.

Brereton said that the large influx of schoolchildren at the library over the last three weeks “was expected. We saw the situation as a novelty and the publicity was deliberately generated. This is precisely and exactly what we hoped would happen,” she said. “But we expect that this would wane in the coming weeks.” However, she said that there was a need for more library staff and security personnel which NALIS has been requesting for a long time now. Currently, 24 security personnel are employed at the Port-of-Spain library. The smaller library branches, too, she said were understaffed and it was impossible to deploy personnel from these branches.

She admitted that large numbers “did put a lot of pressure on the attendants” over the past weeks but the situation was just “temporary”. Questioned about reports about students breaking windows and passing library books to others outside of the facility, Public Relations Officer Debbie Goodman said she had only “heard” reports. Brereton said she was unaware of those incidents including reports where “girls were holding down boys in the Youth Library and stealing from them”. “Don’t believe everything you hear,” she said.

There were also reports that students were stealing locker keys, disc players and school bags. She said it was the responsibility of security personnel as well as library staff to monitor the actions of students. Computer use was disallowed last week because of a reported “sick-out” by workers. Students were allowed free access of the internet and a filter system has been put in place to prohibit users from accessing pornographic sites. “We are not discouraging anyone from playing music, games or using the internet. There is a block so they can’t access porn but these filters are not 100 percent foolproof,” Brereton added.