photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

A Lawrence Police Department vehicle sits outside the Lawrence Public Library Wednesday, Aug. 23, 2023.

An uptick in disruptive behavior outside of the Lawrence Public Library this summer has led to safety concerns from the community, and the library has responded by meeting with local partners in hope of fostering a less chaotic environment.

Library Executive Director Brad Allen told members of the library’s board earlier this week that those disruptive incidents include outbursts that have caused some people to be trespassed from the library entirely. Another incident one night involved two individuals who had a brief physical altercation around midnight behind the library’s bookmobile, which is typically parked around the side of the building.

Allen spoke with the Journal-World in more detail Tuesday afternoon about how the library is addressing those safety concerns. He said that, above all, he wants the library to be a place where everyone in the community feels safe — but he acknowledged that the behavioral incidents are a nuanced situation that’s both “really tragic” and delicate.

“The problem is complex, but what we’re trying to deal with is, to me, quite simple — everyone is welcome to come to this library; it doesn’t matter who you are,” Allen told the Journal-World. “That is the amazing and important democratic aspect of the public library. It’s one of the few places left that are like that.”

The library does have a behavior policy, which applies to “all library property, both inside and outside of the building.” But Allen said the library has been hesitant to enforce those rules on most of the outdoor areas of its property, because the land the building sits on and the grassy lawn and parking garage next door are owned by the City of Lawrence. It’s something of a “no-man’s land,” he said, and the library is working with the city to figure out the best ways to curb behavioral problems.

“We have less control over that as you leave the building because that’s not really a space that we have jurisdiction, and so the conversation that we’re having now is what should that look like?” Allen said. “This is the part that’s really in flux. How do we want to manage that space? Is it a space that the library behavior policy can potentially be applied to? Could it not?”

The library has specifically connected with the city’s homeless programs team and Parks and Recreation Department in an effort to answer those questions. It’s also met with Bert Nash Community Mental Health Center’s homeless outreach and mobile crisis response teams to get a sense of what they do.

Allen also said Lawrence Police Chief Rich Lockhart recently stopped by to walk the library grounds and give the library a better sense of where it should focus on enforcing its behavioral policy. For instance, the library could lessen the impact of outbursts and behavioral health incidents by ensuring that they don’t happen in sensitive spaces that are mainly used by library staff, like the area around the bookmobile.

Allen said that’s all intended to give the library a “lay of the landscape” for who’s working in community spaces related to behavioral health crises and homelessness and which partners might have the best resources to get people the help they need.

The basic problem communitywide, Allen said, is deciding what kind of behavior is appropriate in outdoor spaces. He said that may have something to do with the conditions of the past few years, namely the social changes brought about by the coronavirus pandemic. Social distancing and other safety measures meant fewer people were “hanging out” at the library — and, by extension, the library had less exposure to people experiencing behavioral problems.

“We’re coming out of this world where one, we weren’t really seeing a lot of behavior issues or really a lot of hanging out in and around the building,” Allen said. “… Things definitely have escalated to where we’re seeing more behaviors than normal, but it’s also coming out of a space where things were more calm and less busy, if that makes sense. When you look at it from that relative standpoint, it can almost feel intensified from the subjective nature of looking at it.”

Allen said the library admittedly may have “gotten out of practice” in how stringently it administers consequences for behavioral problems inside the building as a result, but staff also wants to have compassion for what people are going through. He said they’re especially not interested in doing anything “anti-homeless,” or anything that would have an adverse effect on any specific group of people.

For now, he said the library’s been making sure that its security team is making rounds to monitor things and ensure all of the library’s visitors are complying with the behavior policy. The library has also been making an effort to listen to community members. Allen said many of the safety concerns he’s heard about the outdoor space near the library actually first surfaced in a survey about the building’s lobby space, where community members were “quite empathetic” while also sharing real concerns about a complex situation.

The library also sent an email to cardholders and partners Wednesday afternoon about what work has been taking place to address safety concerns. Allen said it was important to let everyone who uses the library know that their concerns have been heard.

“My hope is that if we can get some of the more outlandish things that have happened — or being purported to have happened — under control, that’ll really kind of dial down a lot of the stress and worry that people are having,” Allen said. “… We’re the library; we’re just one small piece in this fabric of folks working together to figure all this out. To me, it’s really important to do everything we can to make this space as usable for everyone, knowing that it’s for everyone.”

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