The Public Library Hierarchy...

Circ was short-staffed last week and they had to ask Info for help.  Because I was the most recent one to work on circ, I was chosen to work 3 hours on the circ desk.  It reminded me of when I swore off circ work after joining the info side.  In fact, I did the same thing when I moved from Page to Circ.

It all relates to the hierarchy of the public library.  From my experience, I believe that there is a direct relationship between the amount of work done to one's position in the library pyramid.  The higher you are, the less work you do.

Pages do a lot of work, if they weren't around I'm pretty sure the library would grind to a halt.  The circ desk would be overrun with returns and info wouldn't be able to find anything.

The workload at circ can be pretty overwhelming when you consider that most libraries let patrons borrow 30+ items on each card.  It is no fun when you get a whole family with 5 different cards with 30 items on each card.  But even with that, it is a lot better than pushing a cart around and shelving books from the minute you walk in the library to the minute you leave.

The Info desk is easy compared to circ, I don't have to deal with patrons who complain their way out of the 60 cents in late fees on their account.  Yes, I know the info desk does have to deal with patrons who are too loud, parents who let their feral children run amok, "issues" with the public restroom, and help non-tech patrons with the internet, but I would take info over circ any day.

Branch management is above circ and info regardless of whether its info or circ management, they both do much less than their non-management counterparts.  How can someone who works a full 8 hour shift not work the desk once??  What are they so busy doing in their offices?

Library administration and the library director are so far removed from any of their "coworkers" who work in the branches.  Which makes it quite ironic in that the majority of decisions related to branches are made by admin: procedures, snow closures, even the temperature of the branches, etc.  During one hot summer day at work, I had a patron ask if the A/C was broken.  I replied that Admin has the control over the thermostat and that they raised it because of the budget cuts.  The patron made a quip about how comfy Admin must have it in "their ivory tower," and that is now how I describe library admin's offices.

Will my public library journey end up with me working in the ivory tower, who knows.  It is the equivalent of starting out in the mail room and working your way up to the top floor.

That Time of the Month Again...

Yesterday all 25+ of the library staff were forced into the meeting room to stare across the tables at each other for 2 straight hours. As you can see from my notes, nothing really important is ever discussed at these meetings.
We did celebrate the 20th anniversary of an employee. Yeah, she's a page. I cannot fathom what its like to page for a decade straight let alone TWO decades. I would go insane. She's been through two building renovations, and numerous managerial regime changes. She's a great person and worker. I wonder if I'll end up "stuck" at the County for the next 20 years too...

Don't believe the hype...

So everybody had to suffer through a whole pay period without any pages. If you asked me what I thought about it a month or two before, I would have probably used the words, "utter", "and", "complete", "hell," maybe even in that exact order.

During the few circulation and staff meetings I attended before the dreaded page layoff, some of my coworkers were also airing out their lament of having to drag carts out to the stacks and place them on the shelves---correctly at that. Page managers were scrambling to educate and prepare the 30+ staff members for this new arduous journey. They even printed <wasted paper> up guides on how to sort books on to the carts and how to shelve properly. One of my coworkers, bless her heart, even warned the others that paging is physically demanding, and pre-shelving stretches are a must---don't want to pull a hammy shelving Large Prints.

The time has come and gone, half of our pages have returned, and I'm wondering why I even stressed one ounce over it. I actually feel like we got the books out faster and more efficiently than when we had about 20 pages or so. Ok, a lot of the pages were bums anyways. Lazy high school kids, who spent more time talking to their friends who visited or bothering me at the circ desk or at my cubicle.

I am still being scheduled to "Page" an hour here and there, and I'm wondering if my job is the same as before, because shelving was not in the job description. I can't really complain all too much, it is a welcome break to the monotony of the circ desk. It also does give me more time to people watch from the stacks too.

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Pages make the books go round

My desk is situated right in the middle of the backroom. As far as privacy goes when it comes to conversations, these cubicle walls suck. Over the past week I have heard several arguments between various pages and the 2 page managers. It all stems from the recent county wide page layoff and rehire event. The county wanted the library to cut its costs so they decided to fire all the pages at once, hold mass interviews, and only rehire half of them back at the starting wages. I'll be the first to admit that the starting page wage is very decent compared to the amount of work required, but some of these pages have worked for years and have accumulated yearly raises that rival my hourly wage. There is one page here who has been here for 17 years, 17 freaking years of sorting and shelving.

Anyways, so the rehired pages had to go through a whole interview process that tested their sorting prowess and tested their commitment to the straight shelves and spines out. They had to sign a clause saying that they will be entirely flexible to the scheduling needs of each branch that hires them. In short, they had to join the Dark Side and pledge their utter and complete allegience to the library system.

I have heard at least 2 different pages argue with the page managers over how they do not like the new scheduling procedures and another one cried because this branch was not her first choice to work at. I have overheard the page managers use the argument that, "this isn't the same job as before." The pages are still shelving and sorting the same old books like before so there's a discrepency there. Oh wait, this isn't the same job, it pays less and sucks even more now.

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