What Do Public Librarians and Library Staff Do?

I wrote a blog post for the Save Doncaster Libraries blog yesterday, in response to the Mayor’s unfortunate comment that was along the lines of “oh come on, there are plenty of jobs you need training and qualifications for, but stamping a few books out in a library isn’t one of them”. This is why he thinks it’d be really easy to replace paid staff with volunteers. It’s important to note that in Doncaster, there aren’t any librarians who could train volunteers out of the goodness of their hearts because they were all made redundant years ago. Doncaster’s also a place lacking in qualified/professional people with time on their hands, the likes of whom are needed in places like Chalfont St. Giles: ”Trying to follow the same model in a busy town library in a deprived area would I think be unlikely to succeed”, says the chairman of the small community library being used as the shining example for volunteer-run libraries across the country.

It’s apparent that council leaders don’t have a clear idea about what paid library workers do on a day-to-day basis, or if they do, they’re not telling people who are considering volunteering to run libraries for councils. I wanted to come up with a list of things that I could present to people who are considering volunteering, so that they’re fully informed about the tasks that might be expected of them, or at least what library staff do that make libraries successful and useful to people. I asked people on twitter help me write a list of things paid staff are able to do that volunteers might struggle with, need training for or be unwilling to do (for reasons like it’s against their beliefs, or simply because they’re working for nothing). It’s a big list, and people asked me to share it, so as well as putting it on the SDL blog I’m reproducing it here. Thanks to everyone who helped me.

• Dealing With Library Users:
  - Suggesting a book for anyone from an 8 year old boy who never reads to a 70 year old woman who has read everything;
  - Being unfazed by complex enquiries which could be of a sensitive nature;
  - Understanding how to help people with computers who have zero confidence/experience and believe they can’t use them;
  - Dealing with abusive visitors;
  - Dealing with young people behaving badly – police have been called to library branches when young people have been climbing on bookshelves, causing problems, refusing to leave premises etc;
  - Dealing sensitively with people who have mental health problems or learning disabilities and may be challenging to help properly;
  - Keeping user information confidential;
  - Huge training requirement around legal/ethical issues;
  - Understanding the issues around safeguarding children and the elderly;
  - Providing a safe, friendly space that welcomes everyone;
  - Directing homeless people to the nearest shelter;
  - Helping people with little or no English to use the library service by translating, using translation services or taking special care and attention to ensure people understand information;
  - Collecting knives and guns;
• Helping People Find Information:
  - Information literacy i.e. teaching people how to research, study and helping people develop lifelong learning skills essential for an informed citizenship;
  - Understanding what users need and how they go about finding it (and working out where the problems are);
  -  Teaching people how to search effectively;
  - Helping people organise information effectively;
  - Helping people assess which information is reliable, for example the NHS expect patients to use online sources to find out about healthcare, but a lot of information on the internet is not reliable and can misinform people;
  - Showing people how to find information about legal issues;
  - Helping businesses find business information;
  - Helping people research their family history or local history;
  - Unearthing the needed information from the mounded heaps of print and electronic, free and subscription services, efficiently and accurately;
  - Ensuring that less easy-to-find materials are available for particular groups – community langs, LGBT, people with/ disabilities etc;
  - Being able to interpret research requests – working out what people want when they’re not sure how to explain
  - Providing pointers on free and paid resources;
  - Knowing how to do proper subject searches and suggest unthought of sources of information;
  - Signposting to a huge range of services &say what they can offer: advice/help on immigration, debt, tax, legal, benefits, housing;
  - Providing specialist information i.e. market research/patents/EU/law/health;
  - Helping people if the library doesn’t have what they need;
  - Understanding the need for access and negotiating access to information that may be blocked by council filters;
• Research Help:
  - Teaching people how to research properly;
  - Current awareness services, all types of research;
  - Personal training sessions on resources;
  - Filtering materials for relevance;
• Internet/Technology Support:
  - Teaching people to use the internet;
  - Helping people set up email accounts;
  - Showing people how to use online job boards;
  - Showing people how to use online council & government services;
  - Teaching people to use online resources e.g. e-books, e-journals;
  - Giving people login details for library computers and helping them when they have problems/forget passwords etc.;
  - Providing technical support on systems and tools (i.e. loading ebooks from something like Overdrive on to a ereader);
  - Helping people use the photocopier/printer/fax machine;
  - Showing people how to Integrate emerging technologies into their daily lives;
  - Helping people with online council housing lists;
  - Explaining how wifi works;
• Organising and Running Events and Activities:
  - Organising/promoting events for kids/teens/adults that promote a love of reading;
  - Rhyme time and story time sessions, increasing childhood literacy and promoting reading;
  - Children’s activities;
  - Visiting authors and poets;
  - Book festivals;
  - Gigs (Get It Loud In Libraries);
  - Helping with homework and school projects;
  - Book groups;
  - IT classes;
  - Doing the risk assessments needed to make sure everyone is safe and secure at events;
  - Dressing the library for events, making it look attractive and impressive (professional);
  - Organising school visits
• Partnership Work with Schools and Other Organisations:
  - A working and up to date knowledge and understanding of the curriculum and the way schools function (see this comment for much more detail);
  - Working with teachers to improve reading skills;
  - Working with schools & other community groups to promote the library and showcase all it has to offer;
  - Visiting schools, talking to parents to promoting a lifelong love of reading with parents and children;
  Giving talks on request from teachers on referencing and the importance of bibliographies for GCSEs/A levels;
  -  Working with U3A and other community groups to help public with online information;
• Library Management:
  - Understanding how libraries work together, dealing with interlibrary loans and the British Library;
  - Data protection;
  - Reporting on library use and user needs;
  - Using statistics to identify trends and assess levels of use;
  - Managing electronic resources;
  - Ordering databases;
  - Paying invoices;
  - Getting value for money via professional management, organization and promotion of resources;
  - Promoting and marketing the libraries, including using social media to promote the library service;
  - Attending training and events to make sure that the library service is keeping up with developments;
  - Dealing with legislation including reproduction and attendant copyright law: photocopying/scanning for personal use, hi-res resources for publication/TV;
  - Maintaining and building technical solutions for users’ needs;
  - Maintaining a safe, interesting quiet environment;
  - Being a premises controller: be responsible for a large public bldg, know what to do when heating breaks down, roof leaks etc;
  - Training for fire marshals etc;
  - Reporting to local Councillors, showing how libraries meet the wider council aims;
  - Managing budgets and staffing, liaising with those who provide the funds;
• Collection management:
  - Promoting/displaying/ weeding/ordering stock;
  - Making sure the books and other items in the library are ones that users want/need/will benefit from;
  - Reader and community development – encouraging people to read more widely and helping communities build knowledge and skills – matching resources to people’s needs;
  -  Describing/cataloguing/arranging physical or digital material in useful ways so that people can find it;
  -  Chasing and collecting books back and enforcing fines;
  - Matching stock held with local community group(s) needs;
  - Dealing with stock management / complaints etc. in accordance with international agreements on intellectual freedom;
• Archives and Special Collections:
  - Digitisation and digital preservation, making sure information will be accessible in future;
  - Storing and conserving media (including old/rare books);
• Other Council Services Provided Through Libraries:
  - Dealing with people paying council tax and parking fines;
  - Giving out condoms and bin bags;
  - Issuing firearms certificates;
  - Selling charity xmas cards;
  - Issuing blue badges;
  - Issuing over 60s bus passes.

Thanks to Abby Barker for making a wordle out of this post

Warwickshire Libraries – BBC Midlands Today

Hello! For your viewing pleasure (for the next week), here I am with my best Deer in the Headlights Face, doing a bad job of constructing sentences in a grammatically correct or coherent manner.

(Caption competition…click to link through to video)

Inevitably I didn’t manage to mention any of the stuff I’d swatted up on or talk about how volunteer-run libraries would struggle to be sustainable and meet the needs of communities, eventually closing anyway because the council looks to be set to charge community groups an awful lot of money for the privilege of struggling away with minimal council support for a few months to a year or so, resulting in reduced footfall and issue figures so the council can justify closing the branches with less attention from ever-more-disenfranchised communities and the media. Next time eh.

MMU Lecture

I thought I’d put up the slides I used in a guest lecture I gave to MMU students today. It was broadly about library advocacy, Voices for the Library, UK public library cuts, politics, the role of libraries and librarians and how we can fight for our public library service.

There’s no script, so if you want to know what the heck it’s about, you’ll have to buy me a wine and get me rambling

Read-Ins: A How To

I keep six honest serving-men
(They taught me all I knew);
Their names are What and Why and When
And How and Where and Who.

- Rudyard Kipling

A few people have asked me what they should do if they want to take part in the national day of action for libraries on 5th February.

Alan Gibbons has given some advice on his blog, so I thought I’d give a little bit of a How To based on what I’ve learnt over the last few months, in Five Ws (and one H) form:

What: A Read-In! I described what they are in this post for Voices for the Library. Basically, they’re family-friendly, peaceful protests.

Why: A few reasons – a) To celebrate public library services, librarians and library staff and the brilliant things they do for people, communities and society. b) To raise awareness of proposed cuts to library services. c) To bring people together to fight against those cuts. d) Show the level of support locally.

When: Any time that works strategically for your library campaign. For the Save Doncaster Libraries campaign, that’s 29th January, as soon as we can after the extent of the cuts in Doncaster is announced on 11th January in the Mayor’s budget, and then 5th February, which is the announced national day of action against library cuts. There’s still time for you to organise something for that day, and Alan Gibbons will help to publicise it through national media channels if you send details to him by mid-January. Pick a time to hold the Read-In. It could be a couple of hours long, or last the whole day. Make sure you check the opening times of the library! Saturdays are the best day, obviously, so that more people can get involved.

Where: Wherever there’s a library under threat. You could hold a Read-In at the threatened branch itself, or at the central library of the town it’s in, if the smaller branch itself is hard to reach. An event at the central branch might be more practical and effective. For example, Doncaster is the largest metropolitan borough in the country, which means that it can be difficult, expensive and take a long time for people to get from one side of the borough to the other, hence the Read-In at the central branch on 29th January, even though the central library itself (as far as we know) isn’t set to close.

How: After you’ve picked a date and time, publicise it.

Police: The first thing it can be helpful to do is let the local police station know that there will be a Read-In. Remember, you have a right to protest and you’re not obliged to let the police know if you’re not organising a march, but it can be helpful. They can give advice about what to avoid (like obstructing public rights of way). Let them know it’s not a militant or violent protest. As soon as you mention libraries, they’ll probably laugh and say “right, so we don’t need to send a riot van then”, which is what I’ve experienced!

Communities: Make phonecalls, send emails, start a Facebook group and set up an event, give out flyers, put up posters in local shops, put an advert in the local paper, spread the word when you’re in the Post Office and ask people to mention it when they’re out and about.

Media: Let local (and national) newspapers and radio stations know. Journalists are more likely to pick up on the event if you send them a press release. There’s advice about how to write one here. Tell unions and anti-cuts organisations like False Economy, UK Uncut, Coalition of Resistance and Unison. Voices for the Library and Alan Gibbons will help to publicise your event.

It’s a good idea to designate a media contact for the event in case journalists want to interview someone beforehand or come to the event and interview someone there. They’re likely to want to know:

• What cuts are being made
• Which libraries are under threat
• How many members of staff are likely to lose their jobs
• By how much the book budget will be cut
• Who stands to lose out because of the cuts
• What impact the cuts will have
• What new things are being proposed (for example, replacing paid staff with volunteers or self-service machines)
• Why volunteers can’t and shouldn’t run a library service
• How the decision-making processes of the council are flawed
• How cuts to libraries are counter-productive and disproportionate

Gather together as much information as you can and be prepared to answer questions. You can use the information to make flyers with key information on them to give out at the event, too.

You need to think about what you’re going to do with people when they all turn up at the library. Some ideas are:

• Ask people to sign a petition against proposed cuts and closures. Some councils don’t allow petition-signing to take place on council property (although most do), so it might be best to do it as people go in and out. Or, just make sure you don’t do it inside if you’re asked not to and shown the proof that you’re not allowed to
• Use the library! Browse the shelves, borrow resources, use the PCs, read the newspapers.
• Encourage people to join the library if they’re not already members.
• Get people to talk about what libraries mean to them, and how it will affect them if the library service is cut.
• Hold readings of favourite books.
• Get the kids involved – take some costumes, read aloud, get them drawing and writing, dancing and singing.
• Have a musical interlude.
• Get people to write to their MP and the council.
• Maybe walk in and out a few times to really up the footfall statistics

Who: Everybody. The point of public libraries is that they’re there for everyone, regardless of age, gender, race, or political affiliation. Libraries are non-judgemental, democratic institutions that are open to all. It’s important for library campaign groups to be non-Political (with a big P) and promote the values of the public library. This means being welcoming to all and not discouraging anyone from taking part. It’s therefore important for publicity like flyers, posters and banners to be free of logos and have an inclusive tone. It may well be that your potentially strongest supporters may well have changed their mind about who they voted for in the first place, and being openly anti-whoever could prevent them from making their voices heard.