We
have a private library in San Francisco: the Mechanics Institute
Library. The Mechanics was started five years after the leading wave
of the 1849 gold rush by the technically minded men of that era....most
of whom called themselves mechanics. I have been a library member for
over 50 years.
I have a horror story to tell you about the Mechanics which always held a fond place in my heart because it was such a comforting place to go....big leather chairs, clean bathrooms and open stacks to browse.
In the mid-1990s a couple of the top staff members came to me and asked for my help. Why the staff picked me, I don't know. They were after-all librarians and must have done their homework.
The story they told was horrific. The executive director of the
Mechanics Library was stealing money on a large scale and the staff was
distraught. The executive director had three ways to steal money.
First she would invite the three antiquarian booksellers in San
Francisco to search through the stored books to find the valuable ones.
The valuable stored books they found were taken to sell with Louise,
the executive director, getting a large cut. 
Louise would mark the
books as sold out of outmoded inventory for trivial amounts of money.
Second she would sequester donated collections in boxes in her office
and invite the same antiquarian booksellers to scour the books for
choice items that were marketable and split the profits with her. The
remainder of the donated collections would be recorded as donated
books. Lastly Louise would skim 25% off the daily cash box of fines
and copier fees. The last was small but was immediately noticeable in
the recorded data when Louise was on vacation.
I proposed to the staff that I go with the lead staff member to a
prominent and respected attorney who had previously been on the Board
of the Mechanics Library and explain the situation to him. He listened
carefully, understood the situation and agreed to go to the Board and
ask for a confidential personnel meeting. The lawyer proposed that
staff members be allowed to testify secretly to a personnel committee
of the Board.. 
The Board heard the proposal and rejected it. The Board was totally controlled by Louise.
That left me one option, to run a group of Library members for the Board. With the staff giving me surreptitious access to the membership lists, which were not otherwise available, I was able to run a solid campaign of proposed new board members for the Board.
The Board fought back with a well financed mail and phone campaign and my slate lost. Nearly all the staff left for other library jobs. Louise continued her embezzlement for several more years until she retired early from illness and died shortly there after.
The Mechanics Library Board has never publicly acknowledged its sleazy role in the theft of valuable library property and public irresponsibility.