#16: Have a plan for teen parents — Library Accessibility

From Emma:

This potential accessibility issue was brought to my attention by someone asking a question on an online forum. Her library had a policy that a minor could only be issued a library card if a parent or other legal guardian signed a consent form. A teen parent came in with a baby, wanting to sign the baby up for a card. Of course the parent is the legal guardian, but she herself was also a minor, so the librarian wasn’t sure if that might complicate the legal situation. She worked for a public library and ended up taking the question to the city attorney’s office to make sure the library was staying compliant with any relevant laws and city guidelines.

Reading her problem made me realize that I really didn’t want to think about this for the first time with a family standing right in front of me. I’m sure it’s already often no fun as a teenage parent to tell people in authority how old you are—the last thing I want is to make it more awkward by implying “Wow, your situation is so unusual, I have no idea what to do! See how your presence in the library is causing us inconvenience?”

I went to the head of circulation at the library where I was working at the time and asked about our policy, only to be told that basically there was no policy, and we’d cross that bridge when we come to it. I ended up moving library systems fairly soon after that, so I wasn’t able to follow up on it. Dallas Public Library, where I work now, issues cards to anyone who is old enough to have some form of picture ID, including people below the age of majority, and issues cards to kids with a legal guardian’s ID as long as the kid is present. So, I figure at my current job this shouldn’t be an issue as long as Mom or Dad has a school ID or driver’s license, which will probably be the case. If the parent doesn’t have an ID, we won’t be able to issue the card, but that would be true if the parent were 18 or older anyway, so at least we are being consistent.

Something that has surprised me about working in multiple library systems in different states is how much variation there seems to be in how cards for minors are handled. I would have thought that the commonalities in state and federal laws would have led to rules that were more uniform, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. I’ll have to add this to my long mental list of questions I’d love to ask a well-informed lawyer someday.