Working with library support staff
Saturday, January 14, 2012 at 05:53AM Note: This week I am on a "writing holiday" from my day job. I'm using the time to work on a revision of my 1997 book The Indispensable Librarian. (Personally, I think it is still just fine, but others have asked if we still use Gopher as a search tool in our district.) While I wrote the draft for my last book I took advantage of Blue Skunk readers, using you as a sounding board for my book materials. Consider yourselves so used again. Thank you. – Doug
Working with library support staff
It is not enough to be busy, so are the ants. The question is: what are we busy about? Henry David Thoreau
Consider these two scenarios:
Each time Principal Jane walks by the library in her school, she sees a busy librarian. Jim is always fixing a printer with problems, checking books in or out, compiling overdue lists, or installing software in the lab. Jim often works late after school, takes home materials to read, and comes in during the summer to help install new computers, or process new books. Yet faculty and parents question Jane about the need for Jim’s position being a professional one.
Each time Principal Bob walks by the library in his school, he sees a busy librarian. Laura is always teaching a class, tutoring a teacher, reviewing new materials, or supervising a volunteer. Laura also works late after school, takes materials home to read, and comes in during the summer to help write curriculum or plan for staff development workshops. Faculty and parents never question Bob about whether Laura’s position is professional. No one can envision how the school can run without her.
The question librarians need to ask themselves is not whether they are busy, but as Thoreau puts it, what they are busy about. In the examples above, the librarians are working, but they are busy doing two quite different kinds of tasks.
Jim is busy doing technical and clerical work. Fixing paper jams, installing software, reshelving books, and maintaining circulation and cataloging records are all tasks that do not call for professional library expertise. Laura’s activities all revolve around teaching or selecting resources to meet school needs - professional tasks. It’s easy to make the determination which type of activity has a more long-term impact on the educational program.
Shouldn’t administrators figure out ways to straighten out the Jims of the library world? Perhaps.
But first we should be asking why a librarian might be doing clerical or technical work in the first place. To be sure, there are librarians who don’t really like to teach and who given any opportunity to do other things will gladly do so. But a more common reason we have professionals performing non-professional tasks is that there is no one else to do them.
Clerical and technical tasks are usually imperative to the day-to-day operation of the library program. Computers have to run if students and teachers are to use them. Software must be installed. Books have to be reshelved and newspapers put on sticks. New materials need to be added to the catalog if they are to be found and students in the library need to be supervised. When these things don’t happen, important things can’t happen either. It’s sort of a Maslow’s hierarchy of library needs - you can’t teach a student how to use a resource or use a search engine unless the material can be found or the computer is running.
Library programs and librarians need good support personnel of two types: clerical and technical.
Libraries need paraprofessionals (aka or secretaries or clerks) who handle things like circulating materials, processing new materials, checking in magazines, answering the telephone, and supervising students using the library independently. Again, if there is not a clerk to do these tasks they will still get done, but unfortunately by the librarian.
Libraries also need good technical support. Technicians install, troubleshoot, and maintain hardware and software. Schools too often have looked at technology upkeep as something that could be done as an extra curricular assignment by a “techie” teacher. That may have worked when technology consisted of filmstrip projectors, an Apple II lab, and a single computer at the school secretary’s desk. With the complexity of networks, the increased importance of school management systems, and the infusion of many kinds of technologies into classrooms and offices, the technology has become too mission-critical to the operations of the entire school for such minimal support. Buildings need access to a trained technician on a regular basis - preferably one housed in the school itself.
In some cases, schools are lucky enough to have volunteers who are reliable and long-term enough to do some of these tasks, but volunteers, especially parents, should be doing more important and interesting work like individual tutoring, creating special learning centers, or preparing exciting displays. Good programs cannot rely on folks whose presence on the job is discretionary performing non-discretionary duties.
So how do we afford these support positions? It seems to me they should get funding priority. If we don’t, aren’t we just paying professional salaries for non-professional work? If a building can’t afford both library professional and support staff, it should consider sharing a professional among buildings who will be doing what teaching, planning, and supervising he or she can do at each building.
The better question is how can we not afford such positions when having them gives the professional librarian time to teach students and staff critical information literacy and technology skills? Without improved learning as the library’s primary purpose, it really doesn’t matter whether the books are shelved or the computers work or not.
Considering the important roles these support positions play, it’s critical librarians know how to effectively supervise and work them. Here are some ideas.
1. Honor their training needs
Paraprofessionals and technicians need and appreciate learning opportunities just as much as professionals. Learning about new trends in librarianship and technology, about new student educational resources, about new customer service skills, and about using new technologies are needed staff development opportunities for all support staff as well as professional. More than most of us, technicians realize that additional training to develop new skills is a real investment – in oneself. In no field does one’s skill become more dated, more rapidly than in the computer science field. Generous training opportunities – school financed, of course – benefit both the technician and the institution. People feel better about themselves if they feel more competent about what they do. Library and educational technology conferences often have a strand for support staff. Watch for conferences especially created for paraprofessionals.
2. Support their formal educational goals
The path taken by some of our best professional librarians started with the person as a parent volunteer, then as a library paraprofessional, and finally as a professional librarian. If one of your support staff shows an interest in getting a library, teaching, or educational technology degree, encourage them to do so. We need all the quality people in our field we can get.
3. Value their contribution to the team and give them decision-making power
Build on the recognition that you and your support staff’s skills are complimentary. While the librarian might have great planning, visioning, and teaching skills, the best paraprofessionals and technicians are well organized and detail-oriented. The simple acknowledgement that all skills used by the library’s staff are important is essential.
There is nothing more demoralizing to a technician than having a Dilbert-esque pointy-haired boss making ill-informed decisions that make the job more difficult than it has to be. There are days that I am sure my techs are convinced that I don’t know my ASCII from a hole in the ground, but they also know that I seek, hear, and value their advice. Again, there are more ways of showing people that they have value than just money.
4. Include them in planning and policy-making
One of my favorite stories tells of a janitor at NASA in the late ‘60s. When asked what his job was, he replied, “To help put a man on the moon.” Support staff members should know not just their jobs, but how those jobs are critical to the mission of the library program and school. One way to build this understanding is by making sure they have a voice in visioning, planning, budgeting, and policy-making. That being said, it is also important that the role of the support staff is not to make policy themselves, but follow policies approved by the professional staff.
5. Keep everyone in the loop
If the techs are going to help give good advice, it means they need to be aware of the “big picture” as well as the details. When folks understand the educational goals behind the decisions made, it gives a higher purpose to one’s job. For example, knowing that involved parents can significantly improve students’ school performance, maintaining that website or e-mail server becomes important. I believe that education really is a calling, an avocation, and that paraprofessional and technician can truly be educators.
6. Encourage their creativity
If your paraprofessional wants to read the kindergarteners a story, what’s the problem? If he has dynamic idea for a display or reading promotion, why not encourage him? If a technician has found a new technology resource, why not try it? Maybe her idea about rearranging the computer lab for better supervision is worth exploring. Clerical and technical tasks can be stultifyingly tedious. The chance for your paraprofessional or technician to do something creative, exciting, and different not only helps prevent job burnout and can be of genuine value to your program
7. Supply the tools and resources they need for them to do their jobs
Technicians and paraprofessionals need to have their own workspaces, decent computers, and the proper tools for the job. Those tools include not just screwdrivers, chip pullers, line testers, book tape, spine labels and book carts, but diagnostic software, program manuals, and telephone extensions or cell phones.
8. Pay a competitive salary or be flexible
Administrators don’t always understand why a “technician” should be paid more than a beginning “professional” teacher. When skills, like materials, are in short supply, their value increases. And competent technicians are too often in short supply. All schools should know what the competitive pay scale for these positions are in their area. Smart librarians can and do compensate folks in other ways as well. Being flexible with hours and days worked is a form of compensation. This gives us a larger pool of skilled workers from which to draw, including college students. Offering comp time works so long as it is documented. And just being “family friendly” by giving staff time to go see their daughter’s music program or help a friend in need is not just humane, but wise.
9. Run interference for them.
It’s not the paraprofessional’s job to take heat from disgruntled teachers or parents. The teacher’s computer just crashed and he doesn’t remember when he last backed up his files and he blames the technician. An angry parent calls the library paraprofessional insisting her child returned a book. The librarian’s job is to keep people communicating even when a technical fix doesn’t work the first time or when a parent has an issue. Librarians must provide a buffer between a cranky user and support staff who are operating in good faith. Do it. It’ll keep people loyal and effective.
10. Keep in touch with reality.
It’s not always easy to remember, but life continues even when not everything is working. A sense of perspective on everyone’s part can lead to a happier work environment. Help your technicians and paraprofessionals to do their best, to strive to provide good service, to use good communication skills, to anticipate problems before they appear, and to meet their personal goals. The reality is that the satisfaction from doing a job well and being perceived as important for many people are preferable to the higher remuneration in a more stress-filled environment. Capitalize on it.
