Readings Reactions Week 8

G. F.

Staffing Shifts Roil Orlando Public Library

This article gives opinions on both sides of a staffing dispute in a library.

I think this article was a bit misleading, in that the tone seemed to favor the staff side of the conflict, while technically providing factual information that backed the new director. I had to read the article twice to catch that the number of professional staff had decreased by 15 since April 1999, but the new director had only been on the job since January 2002. It made no sense to me that she was being accused of decreasing professional staff when she wasn’t even director; she even “pointed out that OCLS actually has three more librarians now than it did one year ago.” I did appreciate that the author pointed out that “42 of the 64 librarians only have bachelor's degrees, and 22--only 33% of the professional staff have an MLS.” To me this showed that the union has a very lenient definition of “professional staff.” As a library patron, I would expect professionals to have degrees and training. I would also expect reference desks to be staffed by these professionals, not clerks, which does seem to be an issue that should be addressed by that director.

Sarah Houghton-Jan

Assessing Staff on the Competencies

This article gives a detailed outline on how to assess staff on different competencies/skills.

I think this article provided plenty of different options testing staff skills, assessing the need for improvement, and following up with staff. It makes clear that there isn’t a single right and best way to assess staff competencies. However, I did think some of the suggestions Houghton-Jan made were probably not applicable in real life. She does acknowledge some short-comings of different methods, saying of testing current skills that it has some serious downsides, “which is why you see it in very few libraries” (44). A method of assessment I think would be problematic is the peer assessment. While having a supervisor assess staff skills makes sense, I think having peers assess each other would open up the possibility for rivalries and tension between co-workers, which is not what the library as a workplace should be about.

Jane Fama and Elaine Martin

One Model for Creating a Career Ladder for Library Support Staff

This article proposes the creation of a new way for library support staff to be promoted and compensated for their work.

With the changes technology has brought to libraries, I thought this article was spot on in advocating for higher pay and the creation of a career ladder for library support staff. This article seemed to reflect the concerns of last week’s “Community Leadership through Public Library E-Government Services,” in that libraries and those who work in them are being given more and more responsibilities without the proper compensation. The system in this article is a move in the right direction, at least for staff.

Mary Pergander

Working Knowledge: To Share or Not to Share

This article shared some pros and cons on sharing information about an applicant with a prospective employer if the sharer knows both parties.

The conclusion of the article was, in general, to not to share information about an applicant because of the unfair advantage it offers that applicant over others. I found this odd because I have always heard that networking was very important in landing a job. Also, saying this would give an applicant an advantage over others is just silly, as one applicant is clearly going to have some sort of advantage over the others in order to be hired.

Week 8

One Model for Creating a Career Ladder for Library Support Staff

This article discusses the changing role of support staff in libraries and how libraries have developed systems of compensation for them. Specifically, it references a model that has been implemented in the Lamar Soutter Library of U. Mass. Previously, I had not thought too much about this issue of support staff in libraries, but this article demonstrates the importance of having a comprehensive way of dealing with them. Support staff seemed like a very transient group to me, i.e. college or high school students or those who have decided to work after retirement. Being disabused of that notion, the points that the article makes are good, especially in regards to the pay scale that is outlined. That being said, I think that seniority should also come into play when discussing compensation, i.e. the longer you work in a given place, the more money you make. In that way, support staff know that their services to an institution are valuable and rewarded as such.

Assessing Staff on the Competencies

As the name suggests, this article is on the different ways to assess the work of staff in a library. Many of the suggestions that the author offered seemed like really good ideas to me. I especially liked that so many of the assessment methods involved staff input such as surveys or observations of co-workers. At places I have been previously employed, there were no such ways for me to offer input on how I thought I (or my fellow employees) was/were doing my/their jobs. Instead, I was sat down in a manager’s office and told of my evaluation by them. It seems that they just observed us at work and took notes. Here in this article, the procedures outlined by the author seem to me much more democratic and inclusive of worker voices. 

Staffing Shifts Roil Orlando Public Library

This article was about the tensions between staff and the director of a library over firings and the use of funds. After reading this article, I found that Church’s arguments held more wait. The director should not be firing librarians, especially when so few of the staff actually have MLS degrees. MLS holders have skills and knowledge that are valuable assets to a library. Additionally, this director seems to want to run a librarian like a corporation, i.e. minimizing costs and maximizing output. I happen to believe that libraries are not corporations and hence should not be run like them. Finally, calling her project the “’Wow Space’” seemed self-aggrandizing and points to the vacuous nature of the project.

Working Knowledge

This short article pointed out the importance of being proactive in the workplace. I had not given this idea much thought, but in retrospect it makes a lot of sense. I usually am pretty passive in situations like- keeping my head down and working. In the future, perhaps I need to be more insistent.

Week 8 Readings

Staffing Shifts Roil Orlando Public Library

There is controversy between a librarian and the director in the library.

I agree that not everybody like change but change so much that the librarians cannot keep up with patron request is too much at once. A library needs to keep the balance between changing the library itself and the staff to go with it. I think that they need to sit down and discuss the situation and what can be short term and long term goals that everyone agrees with. If the director wants to increase its market share, then she needs to make sure that that market share will be taken care of by people who are capable and confident in what they are doing.

Assessing Staff on the Competencies

This article talks about different ways of measuring competencies.

Competencies are good to measure because they are useful tools for the librarians. Librarians may not know all they need to when they first start working at a library. Having some measuring device already in place can help to measure all the librarians to make sure that they are up to the library’s standard. I believe that it is important to assess the skill of all librarians, including myself, to make sure that we can give the patron the best experience when we are using the right tools. It was interesting to learn to not use yes/no questions and if the surveyor do put three choices, such as yes, no, or maybe/don’t know, instead of two and the surveyor will get better results that will reflect better on what the librarian does and does not know.

One Model for Creating a Career Ladder for Library Support Staff

This article talks about one way of changing the pay raise system.

As the world is changing and libraries are trying to keep up with technology, so are librarian’s jobs changing and the promotion must change to fit a new model. This article had many good points in how to change the pay raise evaluating systems to better reflect how work is being done in the library. The system need to be clear to employees as what they need to do to gain a promotion. I would want to know where I am highly capable and where I would need improvement to become a better librarian and if it is coupled together with my promotions, then it would make me work all the harder to show the best that I can be.

Working Knowledge

This article, written by Mary Pergander, talks about tips, that anyone can use, of having a better relationship with your boss.

I like that she prefaced disagreeable information with saying “Permission to speak freely?” It reminds me of Star Trek when a member of the crew is talking to the Capitan and they want to say something that the Capitan might not want to hear. The Capitan always seemed to let them speak and the Capitan listened to what the crew member had to say. Using these tips in the work place would make the working easier and more enjoyable for me and my co-workers.

February 28th Readings

“Staffing Shifts Roil Orland Public Library” –American Libraries A synopsis of the accusations leveled against the new director of the Orlando County Library System.

Even after reading this article through twice, I could not tell you what its point was. It seems to be just a bunch of seemingly unrelated facts trying to form a complete story. I don’t think it got anywhere near that goal. It honestly makes me side with the director. The staff quoted had no good evidence. The best fact they had included data from 2 full years before the new director even took the position. The paragraph about the renovations also supported the director since she stated how she hopes to construct a “Wow Space.” What she describes there is essentially what is known as a third space, which is or at least was a huge goal libraries are after. While it is never my instinct to side with those in positions of power, all evidence appears to be pointing to a huge tangled mess of miscommunication. I’m looking forward to how others reacted to this article.

“Assessing Staff on the Competencies”-Library Technology Reports This chapter explains various methods of staff evaluation as well as what to do with the results.

I felt that there was something missing throughout most of this article. Most likely this can be explained by the fact this is basically an excerpt from a book (I think) and meant to be read as a whole. Either way I felt there was some important material here. Competence in your employees is crucial to running a smooth operation. The only real way to find out their (and yours) level of competence is by various assessments. They can be considered as a necessary evil in a way. Just be sure to choose the best way to implement the assessment so that employee don’t react in a “test and bristle” way.

I was faintly curious (as well as in need of an article to bring to the discussion) about assessment so I googled “library assessment tools” just to see what would come up. I didn’t dig too deeply into it, but a potentially useful website came up libraryassessment.info. It appears to cater more towards academic libraries, especially with the ACRL mentioned under categories. But I think for anyone looking for a good example of what libraries can do with assessment, this is a great place to start.

Perspectives On…”One Model for Creating a Career Ladder for Library Support Staff”-Fama & Martin This article explains the process that the Lamar Soutter Library went through to develop a career ladder for their library support staff.

While I had never thought this way about support staff positions before reading this article, I completely understood what they were getting at. There is definitely no where to go as a support staff unless you go on with schooling and get your MLS. Since this was my plan the entire time I worked in a library, I guess I never saw what was right in front of me. All of my fellow library assistants had been doing their job for about as long as I’ve been alive. I remember being in awe (and a little jealous) of the added responsibilities they all had though, from repairing materials to cataloging. While I am a full supporter of a formal recognition of their advance work, I am scared that allowing support staff too much responsibility essentially defactos them into doing librarian duties, without the degree. But that opens up the large can of debating whether or not an MLS degree is even worth anything these days.

“Working Knowledge-Manage Your Boss Please”-Pergander Quick summary of advice on working with your boss instead of against.

In general this short article seems to have some good ideas. Any way to make your relationship with your boss run smoother is a good option. It beats the other alternative of feeling powerless as an employee and always berated, but then, you may just have a bad boss in that case.

readings for week 8

Staffing Shifts at Orlando Library: This article looks at the controversies that occurred at Orlando's public library when the new director put funds and emphasis into renovations over being sure the library was staffed by qualified librarians.

It seems like a tough situation to me. In some ways it appears that Hodel is a new person in the director's position, and has new innovative ideas for what she wants to do with the library to hopefully attract more patrons. It also seems like she's done a fantastic job of pissing off the library worker's union- and that's a big problem. Whether it's because she really doesn't have any regard for hiring MLS qualified librarians, or just hasn't done a good job of meeting with and explaining her decisions to the union of her library I can't really tell. But either way she needs to figure out a way to appease the union.

Assessing Staff on the Competencies: This article outlines in detail useful ways to assess library staff.

I like how it went into such detail, informing us that we should use multiple choice questions, and ask multiple questions about what they're trying to achieve. I somewhat had an issue with folks not being able to use the internet to look up how to do something, I certainly have used google a few times to get me through a reference request or two. I also felt like this article left a few things out: like patron assessment. I think sending in reference and circulation testers to make sure that workers can handle not only common problems, but to make sure staff is acting with full professionalism towards patron's of color, homeless patrons, and queer patrons.

One Model for Creating a Career Ladder for Library Support Staff: This article looked at how as librarians are doing more and more of their work outside of the actual library the support staff is taking over many of the jobs traditionally done by librarians, more importantly this article looks at how to make sure you effectively transition support staff to take over those roles.

I thought this article was great. I was really excited that it looked at the possibility of training library workers in house. I'm going to be real, I think getting a master's degree to be a librarian is kind of insane. I think that complainant people could be trained in libraries to become great librarians. I kind of have a dream of starting up a librarian apprenticeship program. Most working librarian's I know say that the vast majority of what they know about being a librarian they learned working, that the MLS is just something you go through.

Working Knowledge: This editorial suggested that librarians need to talk to their supervisors and let them know what they want to do.

I feel like this problem probably runs rampant among librarians! Since I started interning at Bloomfeild I've been over whelmed by people's passivity. Certainly it's with slightly different circumstances, but I think having a lot of soft spoken people doing a job that has a noble calling is pretty problematic. Whether it's librarian's not getting to jobs they want to do, or librarians being completely (silently) over worked, or librarians not feeling like they can change the furniture in their teen room- we are meek, we must fight this within ourselves!

Readings for February 28

G., F. F. (2002). Staffing Shifts Roil Orlando Public Library.

This article dealt with the upset librarians in Florida who thought professional librarians were being replaced with Clerks.  Although this article is old, it is still a pressing issue today, and I think the problem is becoming more blatant.  Not only are professional staff being replaced with clerks, but clerks are being replaced with volunteers.  We read about this change in our articles earlier in the semester and I also experienced the demand for volunteers to take over paid positions in my home town.

 This is only a symptom of a greater issue, however, which is budget cuts. As we discussed earlier, the budget situation will not change until we find ways of making the public more aware of our plight, make clear our relevance to the community.

One thing I found interesting was that many of the “professionals” at this library didn’t have masters degrees.  What is the difference between a professional librarian without higher education and a clerk?  Experience?  At one point, those same librarians were probably working with comparable qualifications, and perhaps still are.  

While I obviously don’t like the idea of professional librarian jobs decreasing, especially as I enter the job market, I can easily see how the director may have arrived at the decision.  I’m not really sure this issue can be solved without addressing the budget cuts and changing demands on library resources.


Houghton-Jan, S. (2007). Assessing Staff on the Competencies.

This article discussed different methods of assessing competency in staff without ruffling too many feathers.  My library dealt with this by quizzing new staff as part of the hiring and giving them training in deficient areas over a period of two weeks.  It was more helpful than I can say.  They also had yearly training session that were mandatory.  

I agree with the article, in that straight out tests is not the best method for judging staff.  I would feel exactly as perturbed as Houghton-Jan described.  I would much rather have a supervisor observe me or straight out ask me what I needed more training in.  Otherwise it could become just like standardized testing in school, where there are so many important factors left out.  

Fama, J., & Martin, E. (2009). One Model for Creating a Career Ladder for
Library Support Staff.

This article showed a model for advancing support staff/paraprofessionals through the library ranks.  It stated that the increased reliance of technology decreased specialization and made it difficult to objectively judge when support staff should be given raises or advancement.  Some of the proposed methods of fixing this were personal portfolios, peer reviews, and seniority.  
I never really thought about support staff advancement.  I always assumed that there was one level and seniority determined who got raises.  Obviously that is not an entirely fair way of advancing people, so I’m glad there is another proposed method, though it has only been practiced in Academic libraries so far.  

This article also touched on the issue from the first article, of support staff being given more responsibility and fewer professionals being hired.  Although this article smooths over the issue by claiming the professionals are simply doing more out-of-the-library work.  Certainly one way to deal with the growing use of lower level positions in libraries affecting quality of service is to provide those positions more training and expertise.




Pergander, M. (2006). Working Knowledge.


I found this article very interesting because it addressed the issue of trying to prove your interest and capabilities and outright telling managers or bosses about them.  I admit that I am exactly the type who assumes that by proving my capability, my manager will notice and advance me or give me more duties to match.  This has actually always worked for me so far.  I have a tendency to advance quickly through my jobs without asking for promotions, so it can’t be an entirely misguided work-style.  But I certainly would not expect a paid position to be handed to me without at least expressing interest.  

As a manager,however,  of course we would want our librarians to tell us what they can do and what they want to do. Even if we eventually come to another decision, it makes our jobs easier.  I think it is still somewhat a manager’s responsibility to see who does what well and judge who is best fitted for a task, though.  Perhaps a blend of these two attitudes works best.

02/28 Readings

 "Staffing Shifts"

“Staffing Shifts” discussed the issue of library staff taking on an increasingly large role in libraries, so much so, that they are crowding out professional librarians. This article surprised me in a number of ways. First, I was struck by the animosity between the library director and the rest of the library staff, particularly the reference librarian. That communication in a work place could fail to such a degree is appalling. Second, I was surprised by the library director’s choice (or perhaps it was the choice of her predecessor) to hire people without MLS degrees or even a Master’s degree in a related field. Hopefully the Orlando Public Library is the exception rather than the rule in this respect; its depressing to think that I am going to school and spending money on a degree that is going to end up being meaningless. 

"One Model" and "Assessing Staff"

Jane Fama’s and Elaine Martin’s “One Model” and the “Assessing Staff” article both addressed the need to make sure non-professional library staff are able to perform numerous tasks adequately, and that with increased responsibility they have opportunities for advancement. I do agree with the surface content of both articles. It is important for there to be standards for non-librarian staff, and that these staff members can be legitimately promoted if they have been working at a library long enough and are clearly knowledgeable individuals. However, what does worry me is the possibility that people who have been on library staffs long enough will eventually be promoted to professional librarian positions based on experience alone. There is, of course, much to be said for “learning on the job”; personally, I have learned the most through first-hand experience. Still, a formal education in librarianship provides some uniformity in professional standards and performances across the field. If libraries lose the quality of stewardship ingrained in people by library programs, the service patrons experience at libraries will go down, and then libraries are really going to suffer. 

"Working Knowledge"

Mary Pergander’s “Working Knowledge” discussed how it is just as important for employees to understand what is going on in the work place as it is for their bosses. By knowing where the boss’s priories lie and taking the initiative to ensure that those priorities are fulfilled, employees can help their bosses do a better job.  Pergander’s advice – to manage your boss – might sound a little counter-intuitive, but is actually a very good idea. First, as a person hoping to one day own a business, I would be thrilled if I had employees who took charge of projects on their own. Second, as a current employee in retail, I have found that managing my boss makes her job a lot easier. As manager of two departments, my boss is usually overwhelmed both by bigger issues and endless minutiae; noticing this, some co-workers and I began to take more initiative in our department, and since then things have run much more smoothly.  I can only imagine that in an institution as complex as a library, responsible and reliable employees are crucial to its success.