Incident Reports - Why, When, and Who...

WHY?


An incident report is a Library-wide means of documenting an event within a library; the report is broadcast to all Library Unit Heads and distributed as appropriate to others in the system as warranted for resolution.  Incident reports are a means of consolidating data of an event from what may be many perspectives; when an incident report-worthy event occurs, all participants may be asked to document their experience to give us a more total understanding of how the event unfolded.  They also allow us to justify taking official action (e.g. warnings, suspension of privileges/access, etc.), documenting precedent, and exposing patterns of events if recurring.

For our purposes the Incident Report is a super-sized incarnation of the same brief notation in the DAR.  Whereas the notes workleaders leave me in the DAR are read only by myself and other SLEs, the incident report is a way to communicate issues more globally.  To this end, WHAT goes in a DAR vs and incident report should be considered accordingly; events that are relevant only to Doe/Moffitt/Main Stax (e.g. repairs, staffing issues, lost&found updates, etc) should be exclusively listed in the DAR, no one else on campus could possibly care.

BUT, when there is a medical, criminal, disruptive or facility crisis likely the other campus units will benefit from knowing what happened.  Anything you write an incident report about, you should also include in the DAR for future shifts documentation.

WHEN?

There is no one right answer, but the below are some good guidelines

• When police, paramedics or other responders are involved
• When there has been a serious disruption to the Library or threat to persons/collection
• When there is likely to be a complaint or follow-up by the patron with Library Administration, and further documentation of event will need to be investigated
• When there is precedent or a pattern of ongoing/escalating problem behavior

If it seems serious, and the scope is not exclusively localized to Doe/Moffitt you should just file an incident report to be safe.

Examples of the above might include, but not be limited to, the following:
Heart attacks, seizures, theft, active shooter, protest in the library, streaking, smoking, destruction of infrastructure, vandalism (identifiable and recent), fire, flood, noxious fumes, etc.

WHO?

This too can vary, generally whomever was present at the event or advised of details pertinent to the event will be obligated to file an incident report; this is NOT limited to workleaders, all present are accountable.

For example, someone passes out coming in the door DoeSouth, the workleader calls 911 and the Info Desk Supe, the workleader creates some perimeter around the fallen and advises people to walk around.  I would expect the workleader who was present for the whole event to file an incident report about the event.

Alternately, if as happened last week, the Circulation Supervisor comes to the Doe South desk and requests that we call the police because someone is smoking weed in the Stacks.  We are obligated to contact the police and advise them of the situation with as many details as possible.  To this end, when someone asks us to report a crime/emergency, we should be asking the requester as many detail-related questions as we can to advise the police when contacted.  I guarantee they will ask you where (be exact as you can), when (still happening?), and a description as necessary.  In this case we would expect both Doe South AND the requesting staff person to file incident reports, so Library Administration can have both perspectives, the advent AND resolution of the event.

We will discuss the actual HOW to file an incident report in the next post.