Alright, fine...
If library business is the talk of the town, then I'll pipe in too.
Let's talk about Branch Mangers vs. Senior Librarians for a minute. Here at NW, and likewise at other branches, the Branch Manager is a librarian that handles librarian duties and the Senior Librarian is...well...the same thing. It ends up being a system with a handfull of employees divided up into two pseudo-deparments and two bosses. I, for one, think this is needs to be changed.
Now before I go on harping on how things are bad, I acknowledge the need for a "manager" to be on the premesis at all times, and thus I understand why there are two "bosses" at the branches. My problem is that librarians, for the most part, don't make very good managers. The solution, of course, is that there should be an actual Branch Manager and an actual Senior Librarian...who would have guessed!
I think the Branch Manager should be a manager; i.e. a person trained to completely manage a library. And, realistically, that person would need professional training in both the library and business fields. The Senior Librarian(s) need to handle every librarian duty that exists at the library (reference desk, children's programs, book clubs, book orders, etc...). They wouldn't be able to sit on the reference desk all the time, they wouldn't get their other duties accomplished, and that's where the SLA's step in.
So, in summary, what I am saying is that the Branch Manager and the Senior Librarian should have completely different jobs. The Branch Manager needs to be occupied managing the library: making executive decisions, hiring and firing, handling/endorsing all movement of money, handling all staff issues, mediating disputes, attending Managers' meetings, etc... The Senior Librarian would have none of these duties; they would be creating book order lists, running library programs, handling reference duties, and whatever else their job entails. The SLAs should be, in my opinion, Senior LIBRARY Assistants, not SENIOR LIBRARIAN Assistants. In other words, their only boss is the Branch Manager; who would assign them their duties and make sure everything works the way it is supposed to. The only change I would propose for them is time helping on the reference desk while the Librarians handle other duties. The LAIIs, likewise, would assist the Library, not the Senior Librarian, and thus their boss is the Branch Manger as well. This streamlines the entire chain of command quite nicely, and puts authority and decisions in the proper hands and position.
The only time that the Senior Librarian would assume extra duties is in the absence of the Branch Manager. But this isn't really that often and any real issues could be temporarily deferred to the Branch Manager until their return.
My comments here really only pertain to branch libraries, Central has this pretty much worked out.
What do you guys think?
posted by Seamus at 5:44 PM
6 Comments:
Question, Can you have 'Senior Librarian' with no subordinate librarians?
8:31 PM
I definitely like the idea of managers having a more comprehensive business background. Not an MBA or anything of course, but certainly a more diverse non-library, or library management background, then non-managers. The thing is it's not adequate to simply have been a manager somewhere; as we've seen, simply being a library manager, at least at IPL, does not mean that you're a competant manager. I think it would be better to hire people with non-traditional backgrounds, who've worked in other settings besides, the library. Though I know that's hard to do because most people get their MLS and then just stick to being in the library for ages. So, I don't know how you'd go about it, but I really bet that for any position that opens up they get some apps from people whose backgrounds are more diverse, who they should really consider, instead of just promoting people by rote.
8:36 AM
I think we're all in agreement that managers need to be managers as well as librarians. That said, the management structure needs to reflect that, rather than doing a sort of power-sharing deal between two librarians, because you get a location that's run doubly-inefficiently that way. The one in charge can and should delegate authority to the other if necessary.
It's not pigeon-holing to have a person with a certain title and job duties actually fulfill that role and do their duties. The two librarians are not supposed to be equivalent or equal; if they were they'd both be called the same and get paid the same. At the very least, we need not to have artificial divisions like that.
If you are asking why should we differentiate between the librarians when we don't do that for SLA's, the answer is that every SLA is hired to fulfill the same role (ideally, anyway). We all have common job duties and responsibilities that we are all expected to be able to fill. That's because the system and the locations need that redundancy. However, we do not need that for librarians and even more so, we need them to be different because one of them has to be the manager. Because of that basic necessity, the one who is manager should be not just titled a manager, but function as such. Our organization is just less efficient when it's not run that way, thus causing decreased customer service both to patrons and employees, who they are also supposed to be responsive to.
10:47 AM
Whitey. I'm glad you brought up the issue of desk work and other duties. I am saying that the manager should not be stuck on desk, the librarians and SLA's should do that.
8:57 AM
Well, granted they may have to work the desk occassionally, it would be far less frequent if my plan was implemented.
I say that Librarians should be on reference pretty much all the time. To give them time for their other duties the SLAs should cover the reference desk at certain times. I know that this would add more to the SLAs' duties to a degree, but I think it is feasible since the LAIIs could be rotated somewhat more as well.
9:06 AM
I certainly agree that most any staff member at a branch could probably sit on reference and do fine. If the librarians can't do all their work while on the desk, they should certainly be assisted by the other staff.
At East it was the norm for a librarian not to actually be on the single desk more than half the time. That was between two librarians and one and a half SLAs. I think at other locations, if you have one Manager (who would still have to be a librarian) and a Librarian, the Librarian does most of the desk work with the Manager filling in if necessary and the SLAs filling in enough that neither is overly stretched to get their own job done. The only problem is that truly a lot of us SLAs are not progressing towards a state of being like librarians but rather like well-trained accountants or service desk workers.
9:55 AM
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