AUGUSTA — The Maine Library Commission revised and adopted a patron behavior policy Monday that will soon take effect for the Maine State Library.
The updated policy bans distributing leaflets and petitions inside the state library or placing them in books. It also requires that children and vulnerable adults be supervised by a parent, guardian or caregiver while at the state library in Augusta.
The commission also adopted a remote meeting policy, which state law has required since 2022 for any public body that holds meetings remotely. The Legislature mandated the policy that year, but commissioners said they did not know about the requirement until recently, even though they should have adopted it at the time.
The changes to the patron behavior policy are meant to avoid what commissioners say are growing problems in their own libraries: leaflets left on shelves and in books, and young children and elderly adults being left for hours at a time.
According to the policy, the state library does “not have staff, staff training, or state certification to act as a child care facility or in lieu of trained staff or family for vulnerable adults.”
When the commission met in May, members described a rising trend of caregivers dropping off older adults, many of whom are often confused, and using local libraries as de facto adult day care centers.
Under the policy, if an underage child or vulnerable adult is left unattended and a caregiver cannot be found, library staff members must notify police.
The policy, which was reviewed by Assistant Attorney General Sarah Forster, passed unanimously.
The remote meeting requirements, part of the Maine Freedom of Access Act, were adopted so the remote meetings and public participation used during the pandemic could continue. The law requires public bodies to adopt a policy before holding remote meetings — something the Maine Library Commission never did, a fact that appeared to surprise commissioners.
Before calling for a vote on the policy, Bryce Cundick, chair of the commission and library director at the University of Maine at Farmington, said, “I look forward to the day that we can stop finding out about things that we were supposed to know about and didn’t have done.”
His comment referred to both the meeting policy and the revelation that revising standards for public libraries must be done through formal rulemaking, which the commission has not done in the past.
After considering the remote meeting policy, which Forster also reviewed, commissioners adopted it unanimously.
On Monday, commissioners also discussed how to proceed with the rulemaking process, including whether to use consensus‑based rulemaking for new standards rather than drafting those standards themselves.
As Forster explained it, the commission would identify a group of stakeholders who would hold public meetings and work toward consensus on proposed rules. Those rules would then return to the commission for a decision before moving into a public comment period.
Cundick did not support the consensus option, saying “the commission itself is a representative group” of stakeholders and that adopting consensus rulemaking would simply create a second version of the commission.
He urged commissioners to consider it anyway, noting it is one option for getting the work done.
Vice Chair Heidi Grimm, director of Merrill Memorial Library in Yarmouth, echoed Cundick’s view, calling a consensus committee redundant.
Other commissioners agreed and unanimously adopted a motion not to pursue consensus rulemaking.
About an hour into the meeting, commissioners returned to discussing proposed standards for public libraries.
Last fall, the commission considered adopting new standards that would require library directors to be paid and libraries to be open a minimum number of hours per week, among other changes, or risk losing access to the Maine State Library’s interlibrary loan van delivery service and internet access.
When the standards were revealed in November, librarians and patrons pushed back, saying they could not meet them with limited funding and volunteer staff members, and the commission set aside the proposal. Commissioners dropped the proposal in January after learning from Forster that new standards must go through the state’s rulemaking process.
The commission is now in what Forster called the “preproposal stage” of rulemaking, where an agency drafts rules and develops a proposal it intends to bring to the public. The public then gets an opportunity to comment, and the commission is required to consider and respond to each comment. All comments and responses will be made public, and meetings to work on the rule’s language will continue to be held in public.
The commission worked through some language in May, including whether library trustees should have mandatory training requirements and how many hours libraries should be open each week, but did not reach any conclusions. The commission did decide to drop the requirement that library directors must be paid.
It was clear Monday that commissioners still did not have consensus on training mandates or hours of operation, so they plan to schedule a daylong workshop to work through those and other issues.
Cundick called the rulemaking process complicated and said he anticipated “there are going to be some things in this document that we’re all not going to agree on.”
He said the commission has been discussing standards since well before November and wants to keep the process moving. Other commissioners agreed it was time to prepare a final draft and open the process to public comments.
Maine State Librarian Lori Stockman said the goal is for the commission to meet in July or August, prepare a draft, and have the document ready for consideration at its September meeting.
One of the rules the commission worked through Monday involved mandated training for boards of trustees. The draft requires four hours of training each year, but many commissioners have said that is not enough.
Commissioner Wynter Giddings, director of the Freeport Community Library, questioned whether the Maine Library Commission has the authority to require all boards to complete annual training, and whether that requirement should apply only to governing boards rather than advisory boards.
Others agreed, including Grimm, Commissioner Joseph, “Joey” Houston, director of the Lewiston Public Library, and Commissioner Ben Treat, director of the Bangor Public Library.
Houston asked whether libraries with advisory boards, like Lewiston, would be exempt from the training mandate, and commissioners agreed they would be.
The board also discussed whether to require libraries to review their policies every three to five years, debating whether that review should be done at the library level or by advisory and governing boards.
Commissioners ultimately agreed to drop the time requirement, meaning each library will decide how often to review internal policies as long as reviews are held regularly.
When the commission meets for the daylong workshop, it is expected to take up a proposal to require two library staff members on duty whenever the library is open, continue discussions about hours of operation, consider what services could be at risk for libraries that do not meet standards and determine how the commission would track noncompliance.
Correction: This story was updated June 17 to reflect that the patron behavior policy applies only to the Maine State Library in Augusta, not to all libraries in Maine. It was also updated on June 19 to clarify that the new patron behavior policy is meant to avoid, not address, issues commissioners have seen in other libraries, and to correct that Commissioner Ben Treat does not work with an advisory board. It was also updated to correct a typo in Commissioner Joseph “Joey” Houston’s name. It is Joey, not Joe.
