Yesterday was my last day as a Sunday Librarian. After 6 months of working at the library, I decided that working 6 days a week was too much for me - and that I wanted a full weekend (with the accompanying ability to go out of town occasionally).
I enjoyed my public library experiment, but I am very much looking forward to all the upcoming free Sundays - and I'm already filling them up with travel and sporting events.
Like all things in life I have mixed feelings about my tenure. I very much liked being able to help patrons when I could, although on the flip side, I often felt very frustrated by all the things I couldn't help with - when books that were supposed to be on the shelf were missing or when the wi-fi didn't work for example. Some of the problems were systemic and will need to part of a much bigger solution, but some were a direct result of not receiving any training. Who do I tell when the children's computer won't print? What am I supposed to do when a book we are supposed to have is missing? I found work around for these problems (help the patron print from another computer, put the book on hold for the patron and have it delivered from another branch), but I wasn't really helping the problem get solved in any instance. if anything, I was just perpetuating it.
So, I have a few suggestions for every library system that hires part-time employees:
Figure out a way to ensure that they get all regular employee communications. If you don't want to give them an email address (and really, that is a lot of work for a person who is only there 4.5 hours a week), send email updates to their personal addresses. Our patrons don't know (nor should they have to care) that we are only there one day a week (although I certainly told enough patrons that when trying to explain why I didn't know where the neighborhood association forms were or if we had a projector that could be used in the meeting rooms). They just want information. There shouldn't be a different level of service on the weekends (or evenings or "non-standard" times), just because the staffing is different. Especially since non-weekday times are usually when most folks have time to use the public library.
Train your employees. This goes along with the point above - but part-time employees should get the same training as full-time staff. And if you aren't training your full-time staff on the catalog (and any other software that is regularly used), standard procedures (what do you do when you have to call 911?), and your library policies (how do you handle a complaint? what do you do when a patron is looking at porn on the internet? answer: nothing), you should be.
Give employees good contact information. If a computer goes down, who do you call? If you need to take a day off, who do you ask? Even better, pair new employees with a mentor to ask all those little "how do i..." questions. It will make the learning curve a little less steep.
Pretty basic things, but they will make both your employees and your patrons happier.
And thus ends my tenure in public library land.
Monday, February 25, 2008
Monday, January 28, 2008
Moving Again?
The latest scuttlebutt is that the branch I started at is reopening on Sundays, and I'm getting moved back over there. That would be a bummer for me convenience wise, and seems a little odd from a staffing perspective, but I go where I'm needed... It's not at all clear who decides where I work...
Week 19 - And Back to the Kid's Room
After a very different Sunday on the adult desk, this week found me back upstairs among the children... However, unlike the last several dead weeks, school is back in session and this seems to mean more business for me.
On an unrelated note, when I came in this Sunday I learned about a a fight that occurred in the children's room during the week. It was between two teenage girls -- one of whom I knew as a Sunday regular, and I can't say I'm surprised. She apparently was whaling (or is it wailing?) on the other girl with one of those thin metal bookends... Not sure how much damage she did, but sounds nasty. So, the result of this is that she is now banned from the library. However what that means is totally unclear to me. For example, it's not there's a rogue's gallery on a wall in the back back office. How are we supposed to know who is "banned" and who isn't? And is a banned person allowed to go to other branches? Questions which no one seems to know the answer to...
On to the patron interactions:
On an unrelated note, when I came in this Sunday I learned about a a fight that occurred in the children's room during the week. It was between two teenage girls -- one of whom I knew as a Sunday regular, and I can't say I'm surprised. She apparently was whaling (or is it wailing?) on the other girl with one of those thin metal bookends... Not sure how much damage she did, but sounds nasty. So, the result of this is that she is now banned from the library. However what that means is totally unclear to me. For example, it's not there's a rogue's gallery on a wall in the back back office. How are we supposed to know who is "banned" and who isn't? And is a banned person allowed to go to other branches? Questions which no one seems to know the answer to...
On to the patron interactions:
- A young girl was looking for Lois Lowry's The Giver, which we have many copies of.
- A teacher came was looking for three books, none of which we had: Shelley Pearsall's Trouble Don't Last, Jennifer Stewart's Close Encounters of the Third World Kind, and Carolyn Marsden's Moon Runner. She left only slightly disappointed.
- A young woman was looking for Susan Coolidge's What Katy Did Next which we also didn't have...
- A father was looking for Morris Gleitzman's Once, which posesd a special problem. Not only did we not have it, I couldn't find it on Amazon. (If our OPAC doesn't turn up a book, I like to check it in Amazon just to be sure I have the author and/or title correct. I eventually figured out that the book had only been published in England, and not in the U.S. -- which seems kind of strange to me...
- A mother was looking for Vicki Blum's Wish Upon a Unicorn, and yet again, we didn't have it. This time because the book was published in Canada, and not the U.S. -- not sure what the deal is with the international titles today!
- A mother was looking for some general children's non-fiction books about the Civil War. This seemed like a no-brainer to me as I walked her over to where the U.S. history stuff is. But when I started looking through the Civil War books, there were no general titles. Everything focused on specific events, topics, or themes, and there wasn't anything general! I apologized and felt lame.
Sunday, January 20, 2008
Week 19 - When Being a Librarian Has Nothing to Do with Books
(or research or finding information... It still has something to do with helping people.)
Last Sunday was a busy one. Folks coming and going all day, but the biggest excitement didn't happen until the end of the day.
A little after 4, I got a call from the clerk at the circulation desk. He told me that patron standing in front of him said he was having a seizure and asked me to call 911. I did.
The 911 operator then proceeded to ask me lots of questions that I didn't know the answer to - first among them what our address was. I didn't know our actual street address, just what corner we were on. I actually had to look it up!
I also didn't know name, exact age, if he had a history of seizures or was on an medication. After asking the circulation clerk to call, he had gone and sat down at a table which was out of my range of vision, so I had to get up and walk over to him to confirm for the 911 operator that he was still breathing.
Finally, after what seemed like forever (but was probably 2 minutes tops), the operator told me that the paramedics were on their way, asked for someone to go out front to meet them and gave me instructions should he have another seizure (do not hold him down or put anything in his mouth while he is seizing...)
I passed the instructions on to our security guard who was keeping an eye on the patron and then went out to meet the paramedics. They arrived very quickly (the fire station is just around the corner from my branch). Within 5 minutes, they had gotten all the information they need out of him - all that stuff I didn't know (history of seizures? yes. medication? yes.) - and taken him on to the hospital.
After they had left, the clerk thanked me for calling so quickly and told me that he had always been told that only a librarian could call 911. What?! First of all, if I were having an emergency in a public library, I would hope that I wouldn't have to wait around for a librarian to be located. Secondly, if this is one of my major "librarian" responsibilities, I sure would have appreciated it if someone told me when I started - especially if there was some procedure I needed to follow. I had to write up an incident report afterwards, but I wouldn't have known to do that if the regular, during-the-week librarian hadn't been working in the office that day.
It's one thing to not train me on the catalog (which really, they should do!), but to expect me to be in charge in an emergency and to not give me the least bit of information on how I should handle it is more than a little frustrating for me.
So, fingers crossed that nothing this week necessitates a call to 911. And here's hoping that the library system learns that training really is necessary. Even for folks you are only employing for four and a half hours a week.
Last Sunday was a busy one. Folks coming and going all day, but the biggest excitement didn't happen until the end of the day.
A little after 4, I got a call from the clerk at the circulation desk. He told me that patron standing in front of him said he was having a seizure and asked me to call 911. I did.
The 911 operator then proceeded to ask me lots of questions that I didn't know the answer to - first among them what our address was. I didn't know our actual street address, just what corner we were on. I actually had to look it up!
I also didn't know name, exact age, if he had a history of seizures or was on an medication. After asking the circulation clerk to call, he had gone and sat down at a table which was out of my range of vision, so I had to get up and walk over to him to confirm for the 911 operator that he was still breathing.
Finally, after what seemed like forever (but was probably 2 minutes tops), the operator told me that the paramedics were on their way, asked for someone to go out front to meet them and gave me instructions should he have another seizure (do not hold him down or put anything in his mouth while he is seizing...)
I passed the instructions on to our security guard who was keeping an eye on the patron and then went out to meet the paramedics. They arrived very quickly (the fire station is just around the corner from my branch). Within 5 minutes, they had gotten all the information they need out of him - all that stuff I didn't know (history of seizures? yes. medication? yes.) - and taken him on to the hospital.
After they had left, the clerk thanked me for calling so quickly and told me that he had always been told that only a librarian could call 911. What?! First of all, if I were having an emergency in a public library, I would hope that I wouldn't have to wait around for a librarian to be located. Secondly, if this is one of my major "librarian" responsibilities, I sure would have appreciated it if someone told me when I started - especially if there was some procedure I needed to follow. I had to write up an incident report afterwards, but I wouldn't have known to do that if the regular, during-the-week librarian hadn't been working in the office that day.
It's one thing to not train me on the catalog (which really, they should do!), but to expect me to be in charge in an emergency and to not give me the least bit of information on how I should handle it is more than a little frustrating for me.
So, fingers crossed that nothing this week necessitates a call to 911. And here's hoping that the library system learns that training really is necessary. Even for folks you are only employing for four and a half hours a week.
Sunday, January 13, 2008
Week 18 - Finally Downstairs
Finally, I spent this week on the adult desk -- my first time at this branch. The desk is right in the middle of things, making it atmospherically hectic. That said, I didn't have too many people coming to me with requests:
MLS or GED?
Which of the above interactions really need an MLS to sucesfully resolve?
This week is a little tougher to judge -- despite the range of stuff, probably only the knitting one, and even that is iffy...
Week: 1 for 6
Year: 13 for 88
- A middle-aged man approached me holding a disk, saying he needed help printing his resume. Normally I would have him sign up for a computer and do it himself, but since seven of the twelve adult computers were "down" (ie. not working), I was feeling pretty generous. I slipped in the disk and opened up the Word document to take a look. It was a pretty messy resume, in terms of formatting, wording, organization, everything. The guy's spoken English was pretty good, but he admitted that his writing wasn't so strong. So I sat him down next to me and for the next hour and a half we reworked his resume from top to bottom.
- A middle-aged black man asked if we had any of Linda McCartney's photography books. We didn't, but both Sun Prints and Linda McCartney's Sixties: Portraits of an Era were available downtown, so I put in a request to have them sent to the branch for him.
- An elderly Asian woman asked if we had information on "broomstick knitting." I had no idea what that was, so I took her over to the knitting books and asked her to poke around in them while I poked around online. Eventually, I found an article online, which I printed out, showed her, and she pronounced just what she needed.
- A pair of men came over and asked if we had any study rooms. I didn't know of any, but after asking other staff, I learned of one in the basement, which I unlocked for the men.
- A young woman killing time while waiting for a computer asked if we had any aviation books. I looked in the transportation area, but couldn't find anything other than something about military transportation. She didn't seem to care that much and said she'd go check out the magazines.
- A teenage boy came in looking for information about how to get a driver's license in our jurisdiction. His situation was a little complicated because he was in school in a neighboring jurisdiction, but lived with his grandfather in this one. I went to the DMV web site and tried to figure out what he needed. The process for getting a provisional driver's license is pretty complicated, not to mention all the hassle of proving residency, so in the end I printed out about ten pages and highlighted a bunch of stuff on them for the kid (who was very nice and polite).
MLS or GED?
Which of the above interactions really need an MLS to sucesfully resolve?
This week is a little tougher to judge -- despite the range of stuff, probably only the knitting one, and even that is iffy...
Week: 1 for 6
Year: 13 for 88
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Weeks 16 & 17 - The Dead Zone
Apologies for the tardiness... I had some problems with the blog software that prevented me from posting. Or rather, I was able to write the whole post and then it wouldn't save it... Unfortunately, I can't find my notes for these two weeks -- however I recall them being entirely uneventful, so no harm done. If they turn up, I will amend this post.
Sunday, January 6, 2008
Week 17 - Twas the Day Before New Year's Eve
Last week was a very quiet week - probably because folks were still out of town. I had only three customers for the whole afternoon.
The first user was looking for two books: In The Woods by Tana French and Every Secret Thing by Laura Lippman. Although the catalog said that both were available in the branch, were were only able to find Every Secret Thing. I placed a hold for the user on In To The Woods and for the newest Laura Lippman, What the Dead Know. This was a fun interaction because Lippman is one of my favorite mystery writers and it was nice to be able to talk her up a little. I really like the reader's advisory aspect of public librarianship and I would love it if I got to do more of that.
A user came in looking for old copes of the New York Times Book Review (from the past month or so). She had read a review of a book in which a female writer had revisted the old haunts of Dashiell Hammet and she wanted to find the book. After unsuccessful searches in the both the print and online versions of the Book Review, she realized that it might have been about Raymond Chandler, not Dashiell Hammett and voila - the book was The Long Embrace: Raymond Chandler and the Woman He Loved by Judith Freeman and it was indeed review in the New York Times Book Review. Success!
I also renewed an overdue book for this user, placed a hold for her on Loving Frank by Nancy Horan and let her know that another book she wanted - Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach was available at the central branch of the library, which she thought she would just go by and pick up on her lunch break one day since she worked near there.
This was a fairly long interaction and one that I enjoyed - and not just because the patron said that she was happy that I was working on Sundays now because I was "nice" and some people aren't. I enjoy my job most when I feel like I am being genuinely helpful, and I feel like we accomplished a lot during our interaction.
On a broader scale though, I think librarianship, especially reference librarianship, is a service profession, and so patrons shouldn't have to seek out or feel grateful for the "nice" librarians. We should all be nice!
Finally, I helped a patron find Brick Lane by Monica Ali. The catalog said we had it and sure enough, it was actually on the shelf! She was also looking for tapes by Garrison Keillor, but we didn't have any in our branch. She said she'd check out one of the other branches that had the tape she was looking for this week.
And that was my Sunday. Quiet, but good.
The first user was looking for two books: In The Woods by Tana French and Every Secret Thing by Laura Lippman. Although the catalog said that both were available in the branch, were were only able to find Every Secret Thing. I placed a hold for the user on In To The Woods and for the newest Laura Lippman, What the Dead Know. This was a fun interaction because Lippman is one of my favorite mystery writers and it was nice to be able to talk her up a little. I really like the reader's advisory aspect of public librarianship and I would love it if I got to do more of that.
A user came in looking for old copes of the New York Times Book Review (from the past month or so). She had read a review of a book in which a female writer had revisted the old haunts of Dashiell Hammet and she wanted to find the book. After unsuccessful searches in the both the print and online versions of the Book Review, she realized that it might have been about Raymond Chandler, not Dashiell Hammett and voila - the book was The Long Embrace: Raymond Chandler and the Woman He Loved by Judith Freeman and it was indeed review in the New York Times Book Review. Success!
I also renewed an overdue book for this user, placed a hold for her on Loving Frank by Nancy Horan and let her know that another book she wanted - Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach was available at the central branch of the library, which she thought she would just go by and pick up on her lunch break one day since she worked near there.
This was a fairly long interaction and one that I enjoyed - and not just because the patron said that she was happy that I was working on Sundays now because I was "nice" and some people aren't. I enjoy my job most when I feel like I am being genuinely helpful, and I feel like we accomplished a lot during our interaction.
On a broader scale though, I think librarianship, especially reference librarianship, is a service profession, and so patrons shouldn't have to seek out or feel grateful for the "nice" librarians. We should all be nice!
Finally, I helped a patron find Brick Lane by Monica Ali. The catalog said we had it and sure enough, it was actually on the shelf! She was also looking for tapes by Garrison Keillor, but we didn't have any in our branch. She said she'd check out one of the other branches that had the tape she was looking for this week.
And that was my Sunday. Quiet, but good.
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