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September 24, 2006
Another librarian writes
This is from a correspondent in a medium sized library service
"There can be little doubt, from my point of view, that there is a lot of dead wood being carried by the service. But it is imperative to realise that there is no malice in these people. Most of them are not only thoroughly decent folk, but they also care deeply about the jobs they do. Most of the problems stem from them doing their assigned jobs to the letter, just as they have done for (in some cases) decades. Inertia is a natural human phenomenon - change is something we resist unless it is something we feel will actively benefit us. Resentment is easy to create when you tell people that their jobs are pointless. What needs to be done is to *change the nature of their jobs while they are still in them*. I think a surprising number would adjust quite well to more active roles, once the opportunity to make a difference was laid in front of them.
Suffice to say there is no shortage of staff in our service, yet nor is there a shortage of work needing to be done. If every single desk-based worker (middle management and accessions/bib.servs. staff) did a mere couple of hours a day either on counter or out shelving, just like most of our front-line librarians, info. assts. (and of course us assistants!) the change in workload would be astonishing. We constantly have a minimum of five trollies full of books waiting to go back out - sometimes we run out of trollies and have to pile books on the floor so we have trollies to work from. If we get a shelf check for a book that was returned within the last three or four working days, it can be anything up to an hour-long job to look for it. In the meantime, us assistants are frequently dispatched to cover empty shifts in other branches due to stress and long-term illness, which could easily be covered by the branch management team doing a bit of counter work. We are spreading a dwindling amount of margarine over an ever-growing slice of bread - coverage is suffering, as is the morale of frontline staff. We've had a library review process, and a report resulting from it, but rumour seems to support the notion that its teeth were pulled to avoid potentially upsetting people (don't quote me on this, merely oft-repeated hearsay).
As I keep saying, I don't want to see people upset and dismissed as worthless, but it is plain to see *we have to use what we have to hand in a more sensible way*. It strikes me that the way to do that would be to nudge in slight changes to the daily work patterns of staff who spend little time actually dealing with the meat of our business. Those who really couldn't stand the change would either leave or stick it out until retirement. But I honestly believe a lot of them might find themselves enjoying a change of pace, and find themselves applying themselves with the same fervour that they already exhibit for the jobs they have done successfully for years.
The staff haven't become a problem. The world has changed, and *the way the business works has become a problem*. So let's change the business, and let the people change themselves. Steady incremental change is the way to go; big restructurings will cause as many problems as they solve. One little change every week, or maybe every month if the resistance is strong. But CHANGE. Steady. And now."
Posted by Tim Coates at September 24, 2006 9:24 AM