When I first started working as a clerk at the circulation desk, you would have had a hard time convincing me the library really required professionally trained staff. I after all, was as good on the desk and finding materials as the director was. Or so I thought. And even after starting my MLS degree and listening to professors talk about the important work MLS trained librarians did, I wasn’t convinced. But now, after working as the library director for over 2 years, I’m beginning to think differently. Which is why, looking over the Rural Library Project’s website kind of irritated me.
The project helps small rural communities create their own library. They help get funding for building, collections, and small operating budgets. And here’s the rub. The project suggests a library can be run 20 hours a week for about $30,000 a year. That includes staff, materials, building upkeep and overhead. I know a lot of small libraries run on these kind of budgets and they do so with the help of volunteers and very low paid, overworked, part-time staff. But just because it’s done, doesn’t mean it is either good, right or appropriate.
Here’s why. Patrons and board members will often say to me things like – “oh volunteers can do a story hour. It’s just reading to kids after all.” That concept totally ignores the work, effort and training that goes into a true story time: a story time that is age appropriate, promotes literacy or early literacy and excites parents to bring them and their children into the library. Or there’s the suggestion that working at the circulation desk is easy. Anyone after all should be able to wand barcodes in and out, right? Wrong! Circulation requires being able to search for items, find read-a-likes, trouble shoot system problems, know the collection and patrons well enough to do readers’ advisory, teach patrons how to do reference searches, use databases, use patron computers, trouble shoot patrons computers, etc. etc. etc. More and more I’m beginning to think it’s too much for the average volunteer or part-time staff person. It requires expertise, practice, a willingness to learn new things and a dedication to continuing to learn. We need employees of a very high caliber and we need to be willing to pay to find such employees, even if we are a very small rural library.
I hear librarian’s say all the time that we need to educate people to the work we do. Yet, when I think about most people’s view of that work, it feels like educating others is a very high mountain to climb. Yet, I am no longer willing to say that if money’s is tight we can cut staffing – because I need people who can do more things, have more skills, have a higher level of training, not less. In fact it isn’t true that the jobs around here can be done by anyone. This work truly does require a very special set of skills, training and personality. So, it’s official – I now have become a librarian who cringes when people say, “oh I wish I could work here, it must be so nice just working with books all day!”
Friday, December 4, 2009
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
The One Person Library vs. The One Very Crazy Person Library
I was reading Rudi Denham’s article on single staff libraries in Canada (Denham. 2004). She wrote “Even when staff members buy groceries, speak at the Rotary club or attend a child’s hockey practice, they are ‘the Library’ in the eyes of the community. They promise to renew books while standing in the produce aisle fingering broccoli crowns, and they open the library window to take returned books, even though the branch is closed.” Déjà vu all over again, I thought. Only last night I was volunteering at the local art center staffing the ticket booth for a concert when two teen boys came and kept pointing at me saying to their parents “it’s the librarian.” That afternoon, I’d been at Walmart when I’d gotten a request to put a book on hold for someone. And I regularly get handed books to be returned when I’m heading out to the post office before the library opens.
When I’m talking to other library directors, or even board members, I think they don’t understand how extensive this job can be. Not only all the different tasks, but how the work extends beyond the doors of the library. Pam North in her article Management Bliss: The Unexpected Joys of Being a Library Manager (2008) lists some of the jobs of a library manager as supervising, maintaining the budget, collection development, reference questions, training, problem solving, programming, public relations. But Denham with her single staff rural libraries remembers the other tasks, shoveling snow, deicing the front steps, changing light bulbs, plunging the toilet, bringing in the trash cans.
There’s so much to do, it’s overwhelming. And then there’s the worry about funding, too. I imagine talking to the village board, who stand poised to cut our budget, and speaking about the long view. The impact of libraries on communities, I want to tell them, may not be as immediate as filling in a pothole, or funding the police department, but in the long range what we do for quality of life, literacy, the employability of our communities is powerful. Yet, when I sit down to do my work as a library director focusing on the long range is difficult even for me.
I want the problems at the circulation desk to be fixed today. I want the conflicts with patrons, staff, board, funders, vendors to be solved this minute. I’d like well trained, technologically savvy, customer oriented employees who can take on new assignments easily, to exist now. The Friends of the Library that all the articles say will make my job easier, I want them now, even though currently no such group exists. The trained dedicated volunteers who could help with the circulation load, now please. The community advocacy group that gets the word out about the library, in place today would be great! I know the importance of a long range plan. I’ve been pushing the board to create one for a year or more. Yet, I’d also like instant gratification too. I’d like to reach all those goals today, or at least by the end of the week. Reminding myself I’m talking about baby steps to meet goals over a year, or two, or five is tough.
Part of the problem is the assumption that when I get there – those trained employees, those dedicated volunteers, those library advocates, then everything will run smoothly. There won’t be these problems cropping up that need fixing. Pam North writes in her article that “management is not all about paperwork and problems – rather it offers the ability for us to have a positive impact on our library and its collection and services, the staff, the community, and ourselves” (North, 2008, p. 34). Yet, most days it does feel like this job is all about “paperwork and problem solving.” Even our successes seem to lead to new problems. For instance, three years ago I started a weekly afterschool story time for the K-2nd graders. The first year we struggled along, with only 2-4 kids coming the first few months. By the end of the school year we were up to a fairly regular group of 8-10 kids. The second year the program regularly saw 12-15 children coming. It was a good group that the volunteers and I got to know well and we all had a lot of fun. This year, there’s been an explosion and we are seeing more children appear every week, with numbers hitting 35 to 40 in recent weeks. It’s getting to be larger than the one volunteer board member and I can handle, because we haven’t seen a corresponding increase in volunteers coming to help with the program. So, now our successful program adds a new wrinkle and another problem to solve.
Management in fact does involve spending a great deal of time with problems. Because libraries, like everything else in life are dynamic organizations. We are changing and evolving everyday. So what works today, may not work tomorrow. There will, I realize, always be issues cropping up that need immediate attention and that take the focus away from other things. We will constantly need to be on the look out for new ways of doing things, new things to do, new issues to adapt to.
Will a long range plan, with a step by step guide for meeting goals over time solve many of these issues? My hope is that knowing where we want the library to be in one year, two years, five years, may be a reminder to me that I don’t need to do it all today. It will help me stop the push to just work a little harder, a little faster, a little longer, in the hopes of accomplishing it all now. Because all that seems to do is drive myself and everyone else nuts.
The change a library creates in the community or our patrons lives may be felt over months or even years, not hours or days. And changing the library itself isn’t going to happen in an instant either. A long range plan, is just that, planning for change over time, not overnight. I need it for the library, not just to know where we are heading, but to identify a reasonable amount of time to take to get there. Because otherwise, a one person library, can become a one very crazy person library!
Denham, R. (2004). Keepers of the Lighthouse. Feliciter. 50: (2) 52-53.
North, P. (2008). Management Bliss: The Unexpected Joys of Begin a Library Manager. Oregon Library Association Quarterly. Fall 2008. 32-34.
When I’m talking to other library directors, or even board members, I think they don’t understand how extensive this job can be. Not only all the different tasks, but how the work extends beyond the doors of the library. Pam North in her article Management Bliss: The Unexpected Joys of Being a Library Manager (2008) lists some of the jobs of a library manager as supervising, maintaining the budget, collection development, reference questions, training, problem solving, programming, public relations. But Denham with her single staff rural libraries remembers the other tasks, shoveling snow, deicing the front steps, changing light bulbs, plunging the toilet, bringing in the trash cans.
There’s so much to do, it’s overwhelming. And then there’s the worry about funding, too. I imagine talking to the village board, who stand poised to cut our budget, and speaking about the long view. The impact of libraries on communities, I want to tell them, may not be as immediate as filling in a pothole, or funding the police department, but in the long range what we do for quality of life, literacy, the employability of our communities is powerful. Yet, when I sit down to do my work as a library director focusing on the long range is difficult even for me.
I want the problems at the circulation desk to be fixed today. I want the conflicts with patrons, staff, board, funders, vendors to be solved this minute. I’d like well trained, technologically savvy, customer oriented employees who can take on new assignments easily, to exist now. The Friends of the Library that all the articles say will make my job easier, I want them now, even though currently no such group exists. The trained dedicated volunteers who could help with the circulation load, now please. The community advocacy group that gets the word out about the library, in place today would be great! I know the importance of a long range plan. I’ve been pushing the board to create one for a year or more. Yet, I’d also like instant gratification too. I’d like to reach all those goals today, or at least by the end of the week. Reminding myself I’m talking about baby steps to meet goals over a year, or two, or five is tough.
Part of the problem is the assumption that when I get there – those trained employees, those dedicated volunteers, those library advocates, then everything will run smoothly. There won’t be these problems cropping up that need fixing. Pam North writes in her article that “management is not all about paperwork and problems – rather it offers the ability for us to have a positive impact on our library and its collection and services, the staff, the community, and ourselves” (North, 2008, p. 34). Yet, most days it does feel like this job is all about “paperwork and problem solving.” Even our successes seem to lead to new problems. For instance, three years ago I started a weekly afterschool story time for the K-2nd graders. The first year we struggled along, with only 2-4 kids coming the first few months. By the end of the school year we were up to a fairly regular group of 8-10 kids. The second year the program regularly saw 12-15 children coming. It was a good group that the volunteers and I got to know well and we all had a lot of fun. This year, there’s been an explosion and we are seeing more children appear every week, with numbers hitting 35 to 40 in recent weeks. It’s getting to be larger than the one volunteer board member and I can handle, because we haven’t seen a corresponding increase in volunteers coming to help with the program. So, now our successful program adds a new wrinkle and another problem to solve.
Management in fact does involve spending a great deal of time with problems. Because libraries, like everything else in life are dynamic organizations. We are changing and evolving everyday. So what works today, may not work tomorrow. There will, I realize, always be issues cropping up that need immediate attention and that take the focus away from other things. We will constantly need to be on the look out for new ways of doing things, new things to do, new issues to adapt to.
Will a long range plan, with a step by step guide for meeting goals over time solve many of these issues? My hope is that knowing where we want the library to be in one year, two years, five years, may be a reminder to me that I don’t need to do it all today. It will help me stop the push to just work a little harder, a little faster, a little longer, in the hopes of accomplishing it all now. Because all that seems to do is drive myself and everyone else nuts.
The change a library creates in the community or our patrons lives may be felt over months or even years, not hours or days. And changing the library itself isn’t going to happen in an instant either. A long range plan, is just that, planning for change over time, not overnight. I need it for the library, not just to know where we are heading, but to identify a reasonable amount of time to take to get there. Because otherwise, a one person library, can become a one very crazy person library!
Denham, R. (2004). Keepers of the Lighthouse. Feliciter. 50: (2) 52-53.
North, P. (2008). Management Bliss: The Unexpected Joys of Begin a Library Manager. Oregon Library Association Quarterly. Fall 2008. 32-34.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
The Super Hero Librarian's Journey
I’ve had a checkered past, loaded with more jobs and degrees than I care to admit. So, when I finally found myself working at a library and going to school for my MLS degree, it was like coming home. After years of searching, I’d found the place I belonged. Yes, I love the job, but I also discovered there were other people in the world like me. People who’d done an assortment of jobs, studied an assortment of subjects, until they’d finally realized that working at a library was the work they’d been preparing for all our lives; work that needed people with diverse experiences, interests and education. Here were people, who against all odds and everything they were told they should be and do, were willing to follow their own interests and hold out for that elusive thing, work they loved and were good at.
Sheila Henderson in her article “’Follow Your Bliss’: A Process for Career Happiness,” points out that Joseph Campbell’s idea of the hero’s journey and following your bliss are what career happiness is really about.[1] In her study of 8 individuals who identified themselves as being very happy in their jobs, Henderson found that 7 of them had taken rather “meandering paths” to their careers.[2] In my job struggle to get to the library, people often told me I should just pick something and stick with it. The idea of searching for a job that really answers something within us, isn’t always accepted by society. Yet, it is key to career happiness and a common path, I believe, for librarians.
The 8 individuals Henderson interviewed, all from different walks of life, exemplified Campbell’s concept of “following your bliss.” They all spent time finding out who they were, what they were good at, where they found meaning, and they didn’t give up. They kept searching until they found the career that fit. My path to the library mirrored that search of looking for my own “bliss.” Yet, I’m realizing that the search, or the “following” doesn’t stop simply because I’m now the library director. Henderson states that “work satisfaction depends on an ability to recognize and follow one’s interest.”[3] So even as I try to spin plates and keep everything going in my small library, I need to keep my eye on what are the parts of the job that I’m good at, that make my soul sing, that put me in the “flow.” Because those are the tasks, I’m not willing to give away, to delegate, to let take a back seat to the myriad of tasks there are to do. It doesn’t do me or the library any good to let go of the parts of the job I’m good at.
Flow, Henderson writes, “requires a challenge for which one’s skills are well matched but still optimally challenged such that the fullest of mind/body faculties combine to succeed.”[4] In others words, I need work that matches my skills and talents, that utilizes them, and that pushes me a little to learn and grow. For me at least, learning more librarian skills does that. Learning how to change the light bulbs, call the repair person, and understand how the elevator works, doesn’t! So my first task, in trying to wear the many different hats of a library director, is to always be mindful, to try to know, which hats I really like, which tasks I’m really good at, what parts of the job make my heart sing. Regularly, I need to take stock of that. Even if today, my time is consumed with things that don’t put my in “flow”, I want to be moving toward a future where those tasks can be taken over by people whose “bliss” they are and I can be creating a job description as library director that allows me to continue to “follow my bliss.” That’s what got me here after all, and that’s what I want to have keep me here.
And the same is true for my employees. Often, I find myself pulling out my hair because of the mistakes employees make and feeling like I’ve said over and over again how to do this task or that. Yet, lately I’ve been wondering what would happen if the focus wasn’t on getting the job done correctly, but on getting employees into the jobs they are best suited for. Of course, in a small library that’s harder to do. Specialization isn’t always possible. There are too many tasks and too few people.
Yet, what got me into the library was working at the circulation desk. I’m incredibly good at it. I know the books. I know the computer system. I know the patrons and I can multi-task easily. Do I need to spend more time working the desk myself and delegate to employees jobs I’m not as good at, that they may be better suited to do? There are some jobs, I recognize, I just can’t give anyone else to do. I’m the one who is responsible for certain jobs, including supervision and monetary concerns. And there will always be jobs that no one wants to do! Yet, figuring out what is legitimate to delegate and what isn’t, what my talents and skills are and what others talents and skills are the first steps. Then jobs can be assigned not just because they need to be done, but because doing them allows all of us to “follow our bliss.”
[1] Henderson, S. (2000). “Follow your Bliss:’ A process for career happiness.” Journal of Counseling & Development. Summer 2000. 78: 305-315.
[2] Ibid. p. 309.
[3] Ibid. p. 306
[4] Ibid, p. 306
Sheila Henderson in her article “’Follow Your Bliss’: A Process for Career Happiness,” points out that Joseph Campbell’s idea of the hero’s journey and following your bliss are what career happiness is really about.[1] In her study of 8 individuals who identified themselves as being very happy in their jobs, Henderson found that 7 of them had taken rather “meandering paths” to their careers.[2] In my job struggle to get to the library, people often told me I should just pick something and stick with it. The idea of searching for a job that really answers something within us, isn’t always accepted by society. Yet, it is key to career happiness and a common path, I believe, for librarians.
The 8 individuals Henderson interviewed, all from different walks of life, exemplified Campbell’s concept of “following your bliss.” They all spent time finding out who they were, what they were good at, where they found meaning, and they didn’t give up. They kept searching until they found the career that fit. My path to the library mirrored that search of looking for my own “bliss.” Yet, I’m realizing that the search, or the “following” doesn’t stop simply because I’m now the library director. Henderson states that “work satisfaction depends on an ability to recognize and follow one’s interest.”[3] So even as I try to spin plates and keep everything going in my small library, I need to keep my eye on what are the parts of the job that I’m good at, that make my soul sing, that put me in the “flow.” Because those are the tasks, I’m not willing to give away, to delegate, to let take a back seat to the myriad of tasks there are to do. It doesn’t do me or the library any good to let go of the parts of the job I’m good at.
Flow, Henderson writes, “requires a challenge for which one’s skills are well matched but still optimally challenged such that the fullest of mind/body faculties combine to succeed.”[4] In others words, I need work that matches my skills and talents, that utilizes them, and that pushes me a little to learn and grow. For me at least, learning more librarian skills does that. Learning how to change the light bulbs, call the repair person, and understand how the elevator works, doesn’t! So my first task, in trying to wear the many different hats of a library director, is to always be mindful, to try to know, which hats I really like, which tasks I’m really good at, what parts of the job make my heart sing. Regularly, I need to take stock of that. Even if today, my time is consumed with things that don’t put my in “flow”, I want to be moving toward a future where those tasks can be taken over by people whose “bliss” they are and I can be creating a job description as library director that allows me to continue to “follow my bliss.” That’s what got me here after all, and that’s what I want to have keep me here.
And the same is true for my employees. Often, I find myself pulling out my hair because of the mistakes employees make and feeling like I’ve said over and over again how to do this task or that. Yet, lately I’ve been wondering what would happen if the focus wasn’t on getting the job done correctly, but on getting employees into the jobs they are best suited for. Of course, in a small library that’s harder to do. Specialization isn’t always possible. There are too many tasks and too few people.
Yet, what got me into the library was working at the circulation desk. I’m incredibly good at it. I know the books. I know the computer system. I know the patrons and I can multi-task easily. Do I need to spend more time working the desk myself and delegate to employees jobs I’m not as good at, that they may be better suited to do? There are some jobs, I recognize, I just can’t give anyone else to do. I’m the one who is responsible for certain jobs, including supervision and monetary concerns. And there will always be jobs that no one wants to do! Yet, figuring out what is legitimate to delegate and what isn’t, what my talents and skills are and what others talents and skills are the first steps. Then jobs can be assigned not just because they need to be done, but because doing them allows all of us to “follow our bliss.”
[1] Henderson, S. (2000). “Follow your Bliss:’ A process for career happiness.” Journal of Counseling & Development. Summer 2000. 78: 305-315.
[2] Ibid. p. 309.
[3] Ibid. p. 306
[4] Ibid, p. 306
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
In the event of a sudden loss of cabin pressure
"In the event of a sudden loss of cabin pressure, please secure your mask before helping other's with theirs."
Back in a previous career, this famous line by flight attendants was my seminary professors’ favorite. Self-care was always a major topic among caregivers and putting your own mask on first, was a popular metaphor. It's not surprising then that self-care is a major theme when it comes to dealing with overwork and burnout, no matter what profession you're in.
Jennifer Salopek in her article “Hold Out Against Burnout” interviewed CEO's of major associations.[1] Their common theme was that you don’t do yourself, your organization, or your employees any good if you burn out because you think you are indispensable. Yet, every one of the people interviewed admitted how hard it was to put that into practice. As a rural library director, the rewards of taking care of myself aren’t always as visible, as the rewards of overworking are. I’d like to think people would appreciate it if I was less irritable, but lately I’ve been so irritable, I irritate myself. So, maybe even I might notice the rewards of a little extra oxygen.
Salopek offers several simple suggestions to start working to avoid burnout. They include making sure you go home on time at least once a week or having at least one day a week when you only work an 8 hour day. (She also suggests a monthly massage, but that would require a raise for most of rural librarians.) They seem like simple suggestions, yet unless I put it on my calendar, I know it’s not going to happen. I’ve actually started crossing out one day a week on the calendar, to keep myself from over scheduling.
Salopek also suggests not just looking for things to delegate, but considering outsourcing. I was actually able to do this recently with our payroll. Payroll itself didn’t consume enormous amounts of time, but paying Social security taxes and filing the quarterly 941’s did. I found myself spending days trying to fix the mistakes and teach myself how to deal with payroll taxes. Finally I was able to convince the board that paying an expert to do what they were trained to do, would free me to do what I’m trained to do.
Outsourcing some tasks definitely works, but my experience with payroll also taught me two other lessons. The first is that making the job of library director manageable isn’t going to happen over night. It’s a long term project. I’m not going to delegate, outsource, or find volunteers tomorrow. The immediate goal is to keep myself from burning out, while I work on the long term goal of redesigning the organizational flow.
Salopek’s suggestions help with that long range planning. She suggests at the end of each day thinking about what you could have delegated, how much time you spent on which jobs, what you did well, and enjoyed doing. These questions are the seeds for develop longer range solutions to the problem of too many hats, not enough heads. Salopek writes “build systems to replace the administrative decisions you make” and “be process driven, rather than effort driven.”[2] A former director suggested I keep a notebook of what I did everyday. I’ve only had fair success at this, often going for weeks without writing anything in it. Some days, most days actually, it feels like I can either do the work, or I can write down what I did. Yet, to get beyond spinning plates, I need to not just do the work, but take the time to think about what I do, how I do it, how well I do it, who else can do it. All of those questions are necessary to start designing a system that flows, that replaces all those “administrative decisions,” and that is “process oriented,” as Salopek suggests.
But here’s the second thing outsourcing payroll taught me, and Salopek’s article confirms. “Leverage your own special skills,”[3] she writes. As I analyze and imagine new ways of being a director, running a library, organizing the tasks at hand, this suggestion really resonates with me. My skills are what got me into this job and I want to be sure they are what keep me here.
[1] Salopek, J. "Hold out against burnout." Association News. Aug. 2009. 48-53.
[2] Ibid. p. 53.
[3] Ibid. p. 53.
Back in a previous career, this famous line by flight attendants was my seminary professors’ favorite. Self-care was always a major topic among caregivers and putting your own mask on first, was a popular metaphor. It's not surprising then that self-care is a major theme when it comes to dealing with overwork and burnout, no matter what profession you're in.
Jennifer Salopek in her article “Hold Out Against Burnout” interviewed CEO's of major associations.[1] Their common theme was that you don’t do yourself, your organization, or your employees any good if you burn out because you think you are indispensable. Yet, every one of the people interviewed admitted how hard it was to put that into practice. As a rural library director, the rewards of taking care of myself aren’t always as visible, as the rewards of overworking are. I’d like to think people would appreciate it if I was less irritable, but lately I’ve been so irritable, I irritate myself. So, maybe even I might notice the rewards of a little extra oxygen.
Salopek offers several simple suggestions to start working to avoid burnout. They include making sure you go home on time at least once a week or having at least one day a week when you only work an 8 hour day. (She also suggests a monthly massage, but that would require a raise for most of rural librarians.) They seem like simple suggestions, yet unless I put it on my calendar, I know it’s not going to happen. I’ve actually started crossing out one day a week on the calendar, to keep myself from over scheduling.
Salopek also suggests not just looking for things to delegate, but considering outsourcing. I was actually able to do this recently with our payroll. Payroll itself didn’t consume enormous amounts of time, but paying Social security taxes and filing the quarterly 941’s did. I found myself spending days trying to fix the mistakes and teach myself how to deal with payroll taxes. Finally I was able to convince the board that paying an expert to do what they were trained to do, would free me to do what I’m trained to do.
Outsourcing some tasks definitely works, but my experience with payroll also taught me two other lessons. The first is that making the job of library director manageable isn’t going to happen over night. It’s a long term project. I’m not going to delegate, outsource, or find volunteers tomorrow. The immediate goal is to keep myself from burning out, while I work on the long term goal of redesigning the organizational flow.
Salopek’s suggestions help with that long range planning. She suggests at the end of each day thinking about what you could have delegated, how much time you spent on which jobs, what you did well, and enjoyed doing. These questions are the seeds for develop longer range solutions to the problem of too many hats, not enough heads. Salopek writes “build systems to replace the administrative decisions you make” and “be process driven, rather than effort driven.”[2] A former director suggested I keep a notebook of what I did everyday. I’ve only had fair success at this, often going for weeks without writing anything in it. Some days, most days actually, it feels like I can either do the work, or I can write down what I did. Yet, to get beyond spinning plates, I need to not just do the work, but take the time to think about what I do, how I do it, how well I do it, who else can do it. All of those questions are necessary to start designing a system that flows, that replaces all those “administrative decisions,” and that is “process oriented,” as Salopek suggests.
But here’s the second thing outsourcing payroll taught me, and Salopek’s article confirms. “Leverage your own special skills,”[3] she writes. As I analyze and imagine new ways of being a director, running a library, organizing the tasks at hand, this suggestion really resonates with me. My skills are what got me into this job and I want to be sure they are what keep me here.
[1] Salopek, J. "Hold out against burnout." Association News. Aug. 2009. 48-53.
[2] Ibid. p. 53.
[3] Ibid. p. 53.
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Learning to Spin Plates
Most days being a rural library director feels like being one of those jugglers who spins plates. I keep running around from one plate to the next, trying to give it just enough spin to keep it going, but not so much it flies off the stick and crashes to the floor. I run as fast I can from one task to the next, hoping I get there in time. Or to use the hat metaphor, I’m switching hats so fast, I can’t remember which one I have on. And the truth is that sometimes it doesn’t work. I fall behind, don’t make it to the next task on time, and things don’t get done.
In this job there are a lot of plates to spin, or hats to wear. My job description lists my responsibilities as covering, administrative services, collection management, service and service promotion, personnel management, business management, communication and public relations and facilities management. And those are just the beginning, because under each one is a host of individual tasks. Take collection management, for instance, it involves maintaining the policy, selecting books, ordering books, processing books, paying for books, answering questions about books for every area in the library.
Here’s a list of tasks library directors do. Finance includes creating the budget, balancing the budget, doing payroll, and paying bills for starters. Personnel includes advertising for staff, interviewing, hiring, training, supervising, scheduling staff, evaluating, and even firing. There’s all the little things that no one thinks about, like overseeing circulation, answering patrons questions, answering staff questions, training staff to answer patron questions, finding missing items, and trouble shooting computers, which usually involves crawling around on the floor. Then there’s programming, the part I love the most and get to do the least, which includes developing programs, doing programs, getting grants for programs, and finding volunteers to help with programs. There’s scheduling: scheduling programs, community rooms, meetings, repair visits. Or supplies, which need to be ordered and picked up, There’s filling in when someone is sick, creating manuals and policies, doing the annual report, maintaining and updating the website, writing the newsletter and the many things that we do but forget we do. The list is overwhelming. And for the rural library director, please don’t forget shoveling snow, taking in the garbage cans, plunging the toilet, or calling, waiting around for and arguing with repair people!
Some days it feels like the jobs of a “real” librarian, what we got into this business for, go by the wayside. Reader’s advisory, reference questions, story hour often take a back seat. I am supposed to do it all in 35 hours a week. It’s hard to figure out how though, so usually I'm working extra hours and becoming very irritable.
There are always people willing to give advice. The biggest items of advice I get are to use volunteers, delegate to staff, or cut back on programs. Those suggestions make me think the person giving advice has no idea what they are talking about. Volunteers require training, supervision and scheduling, all things that take up more of my time, not less. Delegating to staff would be great, but it assumes there are staff to delegate to, or staff who have the time to take on more jobs. And of course stopping programs is cutting out a library director’s heart. It’s what we’re good at, what gives the library and the job, heart and soul. It’s something I can’t consider doing.
So what’s the solution? The truth is most days I don’t have a plan, a scheme, an answer, other than to just try and keep it all together. I settle for keeping the most important and immediate plates spinning, wearing the most important hat today. And sometimes, I just have to take a plate down, or even let it crash. I also keep nudging the board for that elusive long range plan, which just might find someone else to wear a couple of these hats. Spread the hat hair around – that should be our motto!
In this job there are a lot of plates to spin, or hats to wear. My job description lists my responsibilities as covering, administrative services, collection management, service and service promotion, personnel management, business management, communication and public relations and facilities management. And those are just the beginning, because under each one is a host of individual tasks. Take collection management, for instance, it involves maintaining the policy, selecting books, ordering books, processing books, paying for books, answering questions about books for every area in the library.
Here’s a list of tasks library directors do. Finance includes creating the budget, balancing the budget, doing payroll, and paying bills for starters. Personnel includes advertising for staff, interviewing, hiring, training, supervising, scheduling staff, evaluating, and even firing. There’s all the little things that no one thinks about, like overseeing circulation, answering patrons questions, answering staff questions, training staff to answer patron questions, finding missing items, and trouble shooting computers, which usually involves crawling around on the floor. Then there’s programming, the part I love the most and get to do the least, which includes developing programs, doing programs, getting grants for programs, and finding volunteers to help with programs. There’s scheduling: scheduling programs, community rooms, meetings, repair visits. Or supplies, which need to be ordered and picked up, There’s filling in when someone is sick, creating manuals and policies, doing the annual report, maintaining and updating the website, writing the newsletter and the many things that we do but forget we do. The list is overwhelming. And for the rural library director, please don’t forget shoveling snow, taking in the garbage cans, plunging the toilet, or calling, waiting around for and arguing with repair people!
Some days it feels like the jobs of a “real” librarian, what we got into this business for, go by the wayside. Reader’s advisory, reference questions, story hour often take a back seat. I am supposed to do it all in 35 hours a week. It’s hard to figure out how though, so usually I'm working extra hours and becoming very irritable.
There are always people willing to give advice. The biggest items of advice I get are to use volunteers, delegate to staff, or cut back on programs. Those suggestions make me think the person giving advice has no idea what they are talking about. Volunteers require training, supervision and scheduling, all things that take up more of my time, not less. Delegating to staff would be great, but it assumes there are staff to delegate to, or staff who have the time to take on more jobs. And of course stopping programs is cutting out a library director’s heart. It’s what we’re good at, what gives the library and the job, heart and soul. It’s something I can’t consider doing.
So what’s the solution? The truth is most days I don’t have a plan, a scheme, an answer, other than to just try and keep it all together. I settle for keeping the most important and immediate plates spinning, wearing the most important hat today. And sometimes, I just have to take a plate down, or even let it crash. I also keep nudging the board for that elusive long range plan, which just might find someone else to wear a couple of these hats. Spread the hat hair around – that should be our motto!
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