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August 30, 2006
Hello from Tennessee
I was thrilled to get this from Jennifer Watson in Tennessee -- Jennifer, many thanks indeed.
I hope a librarian in one of our public libraries will give us a similar account of what they do.
"I haven't read the Bookseller article, but I wanted to respond to the question of what "back-room people" do all day. Some of the work performed by library staff out of sight of the public includes: selecting materials to add to the library's collection; physically processing materials to put on the shelf (barcodes, spine labels, etc.) and repairing damaged materials; negotiating licensing and pricing of online resources; processing invoices; maintaining the physical facility (replacing lightbulbs, cleaning, etc.); setting up online access to databases; maintaining linking and search services to facilitate easier access to online resources; adding information to the library catalog; maintaining the library's web site, computers, printers and software; maintaining the integrated library system, specialised software which manages everything from patron information to fines, checkouts and the library catalog; processing interlibrary loan requests; planning new library services; providing staff training. Without back-room people in libraries, there would be no books on the shelves, no functioning computers in libraries and no online databases to use. Jennifer Watson, Head, Electronic & Collection Services (i.e. "back-room person"), University of Tennessee Health Science Center, Memphis, USA."
Posted by Perkins at August 30, 2006 4:02 PM
Comments
Those seem to me to be proper and necessary jobs 'back room' and I applaud them.. because they are proper and necessary jobs to be done with BOOKS. The problem we have is that now UK libraries buy few books - they see themselves more as co-ordinators of lifetime learning and facilitators of electronic communications and supporters of empowerment to the socially excluded.... those are the ones whose jobs back-room I wonder about. They have decided that books are old hat and old fashioned and that no one wants them any more so they threw a lot of them away and got stuck into the brave new world of the above.
If only they could tell us in such nice straightforward and comprehensible terms what their jobs are it would be wonderful.
But it won`t happen.
Posted by: SUSAN HILL at August 30, 2006 9:37 PM
Looking at the above list of tasks I am fairly confident that they are not all performed by the same person.
All of the same work is also done in the library I work in (not all by me I hasten to add). Personally I also spend time off the public desk answering queries by phone or email, researching ongoing queries, setting up and running Book Groups, maintaining existing stock (weeding off old and worn books and ordering replacements, checking for stock gaps etc), rotating book stock throughout our branches, managing displays and (because we are undergoing a service review) I seem to have spent a great deal of time describing to management types what I do on a day to day basis J
Susan, I think I see what you are getting at, but I’d have to disagree with you on a few points. “Lifelong learning” and “empowering the socially excluded” have always been part of the role of public libraries, we provide information and research materials to anyone who asks for it and I hope that we always will. Secondly, whilst I freely admit that a lot of people use public libraries to access email or internet chat-rooms these are more a by-product of free internet access rather than a purpose of libraries. Thirdly, most of these are not actually “backroom” tasks because they all involve contact with the public.
I agree that libraries should have more books and that they should make as many books available to their users as possible but “lifelong learning” and “social inclusion” would both benefit from this.
Posted by: Miriam Palfrey at August 31, 2006 3:52 PM