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.