AUSTIN, Texas — The Austin Public Library (APL) is working with the city of Austin and the Travis County Sheriff’s Office (TCSO) to make library branches safer.
This week, the Austin City Council approved an agreement that would provide $40,000 for TCSO deputies to use their vehicles while patrolling the libraries.
Currently, in addition to APL’s 37-member security staff, APL has consistently had one TCSO deputy working off-duty to patrol the Central Library location downtown.
Library staff said they brought on the deputy in response to incidents at the library increasing over the past few years.
“We’ve seen kind of an across the board increase in library use violations,” Baylor Johnson, the public information officer and marketing manager for APL, said.
Johnson said library violations can range anywhere from something less serious like eating in a prohibited area, all the way up to criminal activity like vandalism and drug use.
Because the library is a public space that many people use, including people experiencing homelessness using branches as a cooling center in the summer, that creates some challenges.
“Libraries are such public spaces that are really welcoming to everyone,” Johnson said. “In a lot of ways, library staff have to be on the front lines for some of the issues that affect a large and growing city like Austin; things like mental health, substance abuse.”
The city’s resolution mentioned other issues library staff have been experiencing lately. An excerpt from that resolution reads in part:
The nature of these incidents has grown increasingly worse, including the destruction of property, threats, violence (physical attacks against employees and customers), weapons, theft, and the possession and/or use of drugs or alcohol, which has led to the need for increased safety and security measures.
"When we get to, you know, the criminal activity, the vandalism, the drug use that requires a law enforcement response, and that's just a little bit beyond what we have to ask or should be asking library staff to respond to,” Johnson said.
TCSO told KVUE there are four positions deputies can sign up for to work off-duty shifts for the Central Library downtown, but there's only one deputy who does it consistently. Johnson said just having that one extra presence has already been helpful though.
“Austin Public Library employs a really great staff of three dozen security professionals, but they're not law enforcement officers,” Johnson said. “Having Travis County Sheriff's officers on site really makes sure that we're able to respond at the appropriate level quickly.”
Johnson said TCSO deputies can help prevent dangerous situations from occurring, as well as respond more quickly when they do because they are already on site.
KVUE asked library staff if they wanted to add more TCSO deputies to patrol. They said it’s something they’ll keep looking at as they keep monitoring the results.
“We're going to look at the impact of, you know, what happens as we sort of expand the agreement that we already have and see if this is something that we want to expand further,” Johnson said.