Misuse of workers?
I just wonder if you guys think that it's ok for an SLA to be tasked with actual librarian's duties. I'm specifically thinking of the situation at East Branch where the full-time SLA that was added was chosen specifically for the ability to do children's programs. In case you all weren't aware of the situation, when Alex left his job, the position was transferred to East Branch (which is why I was transferred to Central). Around the same time, after Miriam Rodriguez left her job, the people upstairs decided they wanted Maria Redburn to take over her duties as liaison to other organizations regarding our multicultural programs. Actually, they wanted Maria to take Miriam's job and Maria wanted to do it, but Miriam got paid less than Maria does so she stayed as the EB manager. After that, those in charge decided that she'd do Miriam's job anyway, without getting any more pay or transferring. This meant that Maria had to give up her storytime. She hired the new full-time SLA based on that person's ability to do children's programs as well as normal SLA duties. Actually, over at EB, the SLAs have way more responsibility than anywhere else. I mean, we were actually ordering parts of the collection. Now, that's ok when it's just occasional and time permits, but when it becomes part of your regular duties your job has fundamentally altered.
What I'm saying is that I don't think it's ok to put the responsibilities of a higher position (with higher pay) on a person in a lower position (with lower pay) and expect them to fulfill those duties the same as the person in the superior position. We don't expect the LAIIs to be SLAs, nor LAIs to be LAIIs, and we should maintain that stance for the SLAs. In my opinion, not only is this unfair to the individual in the position, but even if they like the job, it's setting a bad precedent. For one thing, it's saying that we don't actually need librarians to do librarian jobs, and that it's ok to pay non-professional staff less than professional staff to do the professional's job. It's like letting the para-legals go to court! What do you guys think?
posted by Nat-Wu at 3:19 PM
13 Comments:
I agree that I think most of you guys could probably do most of the jobs of most of the librarians out there. But, there is a reason they go to grad school, and they should be tasked with jobs at the level of their training and ability, and paid accordingly. It would be taking the cheap way out to start assigning to SLAs the duties that librarians possess, especially when those SLAs may in some instances not be as capable as the librarians they are replacing. Plus, you guys should be compensated at the level of the librarians if you're doing comparable work. I enjoyed more responsibility as well, at least enough to make my job interesting, but only to a point...if they ever wanted to stick me on desk, I'd be asking to get paid more.
10:33 PM
I'm not saying we shouldn't assist librarians in doing their tasks, such as weeding. But let's remember that it is assistance unless your job is actually to decide when to weed, what sections, and what the criteria are for withdrawing an item. And I certainly disagree with Meredith about that. If you're in the stacks and someone asks you where an item is, it's better customer service for the shelver to take them to it than to refer the question to a librarian. However, that's not to be confused with an LAII doing reference work. Some of us get enough experience that if a patron has a deeper reference question we might actually be able to handle it, but there's just some things we can't really do and shouldn't be expected to do. It's one thing to find a kid a book about the alamo, it's another to find a bunch of resources about the Texas Revolution.
As Alex says, you should be compensated for the level of work you're doing. If others in the system don't feel that they ought to be, I still don't want them setting a precedent like that for the whole system.
7:12 AM
I don't think the phenomenon is nearly that recent. I was, as a matter of fact, reading an article on this in the library magazine (I forget what it's called). You can't blame the city too much for trying to cut costs this way, but you can blame them for trying to cut costs and degrading services while saying they're not.
9:46 AM
Our service is degraded when we have a certain amount of demands on our time and staff and not enough staff to meet those demands or because of lack of staff training (something endemic in the library system). There are certainly other cases, such as when our equipment is used and abused far too much and starts causing errors (i.e. faulty scanners, bricks that don't demagnetize, computers that crash, etc.)
You can make an argument that if we have enough staff to be open a certain amount of hours that that is service enough, but I say that we are supposed to provide service at a certain level (and not just me, if you read your library policy it comes from the city Council and Library Director). For example, books need to be checked in and shelved in a timely manner. Our shelves are to be organized and neat, not overcrowded and filled with misfiled items. Patron requests and complaints are to be responded to quickly, not just when we get around to it. When we are not given the staff to do this, or when the staff is not given sufficient training, or our equipment is not sufficient, our service actually falls below the standard it is supposed to meet. Now I think we do an admirable job overall with few oversights, but the demands on the library system grow larger every year, and with the city trying to shrink as many roles as possible into as few jobs as possible, it does mean that sometimes our actual ability to serve all our customers and do our duty at the level we're supposed to is unacheivable.
The key is not that we're just supposed to get the work done; we're supposed to do it while maintaining a high quality of service. Whether we do that already or not is debatable, I'm just saying things are supposed to be that way.
11:06 AM
As for the magazine, I think it was the American Library Journal, or something like that. Your librarians must get it at your location too, I believe. I have no idea if you can access it online. I'll see if maybe I can find it.
11:10 AM
Ok, I got the answers for you. It's "American Libraries" and you can look it up online. Use the Ebsco database and look for this:
Title: PROFESSIONAL VALUES: PRICELESS.
Authors: Crowley, Bill1
Ginsberg, Deborah2
Source: American Libraries; Jan2005, Vol. 36 Issue 1, p52, 4p, 1c
11:40 AM
Overall, I would agree. Whatever the role of the librarian in the future, we will still need them. What I'm solidly against is putting the professional duties of the librarian in the hands of the non-professional staff. Despite the fact that we are well-paid for what we do, we are not paid well enough to do a librarian's job. I would say that we could have an additional category, call it the "non-professional librarian" (perhaps simply degreed with a bachelor's) to do those things without having the MLS and without getting paid as much but who don't get the same level of responsibility. The reason I don't favor simply handing certain responsibilities over to SLA's is because by and large, we are not qualified for the work. Experience counts for a lot, but training will count for more when combined with experience. If you look at the SLA's in the system, I don't think you'll see the best people in the IPL, some of whom, I believe, are in the even lower echelons.
3:37 PM
No doubt. I guess I don't blame the system for wanting stability, but the utter lack of ambition is staggering.
10:56 AM
I very much agree. The question is whether we can ever do that or not. The people around here just don't seem to see the problems we do or they don't care.
11:21 AM
I think it was Chris and John and me talking about how branches should be run by managers, not librarians. As far as the business side of things goes, we kind of suck.
1:40 PM
Well, supervising employees for one thing. Most of them seem to have no idea how to handle training or discipline. Also, none of them seem to have any training in economizing workflow. It seems like our librarians want to have a staff but don't want to have to supervise them.
6:12 PM
I quite agree with that last point. I think one of the major problems of IPL that I've seen almost everywhere I've worked is a failure of management to actually...well, manage. A lot of those at the management level just seem to lack some of the most basic skills when it comes to supervision or management. I think the solution to that is a greater focus on management training by the library and the city, and greater emphasis on some prior supervisory experience in new hires.
8:40 PM
That's a very good point, Daniel. I'd totally forgotten about running into that wall.
5:01 PM
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