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Supervisors to Review Library Firing

March 15, 2008 - 9:25am — Great Western Dragon

A very quick follow up on the story of the librarian fired because she handed a patron over to the police for viewing child porn at the library.

An extremely short article in the Visalia Times-Delta states that supervisors will evaluate County Librarian Brian Lewis, the terminated librarian's former supervisor.

Another report on the original incident.

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March 15, 2008 - 10:47am — Anonymous (not verified)

Huh. I'd hand over a patron

Huh. I'd hand over a patron to the police too, if it was child porn. Regular porn, no.

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March 15, 2008 - 12:28pm — mdoneil

Preaching to the chior

You will probably have 99% of the librarians here agreeing with you.

While I am not in favor of patrons (or staff for that matter) viewing porn in the library, it is not a crime.

Child porn is a crime and those who view, make, or otherwise are involved with it are disgusting.

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March 17, 2008 - 8:45am — effinglibrarian

whistleblower

the chronology in this story makes it appear like there was retaliation:
"Biesterfeld hadn't told her supervisors that she called the police or that she was assisting them. "

'"She kind of threatened me," Biesterfeld said."

if she was reporting an unsafe work environment (unsafe for children) and a supervisor retaliates with termination, that could be covered by federal whistleblowing protection.

the problem is that she was still on probation, so they could really use any excuse to fire her.

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March 18, 2008 - 12:28pm — Anonymous (not verified)

Reserving judgment

Of course, California law prevents the library administration from saying anything about Biesterfield's employment status, quality of work, or her termination. We only have her word for many of the claimed facts in this case.

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