It's not unreasonable for library staff to approach a person and tell them that there have been complaints about their odor. Unfortunately not all smelly people respond well to something like this. The mentally unstable homeless can be highly inflamatory - start screaming at you and cause a scene, which would be far more distracting to the patrons than the body odor in many cases.
A public library is for the people. Including the worst of us.
If a person is constantly there and they smell so badly that patrons are no longer frequenting your library, then that's an instance where you just need to step up. Offer the guy/gal a bar of soap and let them have a few minutes to themselves in the restroom every morning. If they take offense to your offer, they'll either throw a fit and you can call the cops, or they'll stop showing up.
A bit of a threadjack:
Quote:
Originally Posted by braisler
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But then the libraries around here (Kentucky) are typically attractive looking, large buildings with very, very few books inside. Seriously! It is stunning. It feels like they spent 80% of the budget on building the library and 20% on the books. It was quite the shocker when I first moved here.
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Do your libraries participate in the interlibrary loan program? It's easy to get your hands onto nearly any obscure book you can think of through interlibrary loan.