I bump into Wendy Muffplaster, who's been one of the participants in this afternoon's business planning workshop.
"How'd it go?" I asked recklessly.
"We'd have been better off paying for a couple of Library Assistants."
I'd rather doubt it: they've had most of the staff from Catty Library camped out at Umpty and there's bugger all to show for it. Judging by the drop in the issue figures they're not even borrowing books there.
On reflection, perhaps we would have been. If all the participants had been as positive and open as Wendy I can't imagine much would have been achieved on the exercise.
It's a few years since I last tried to persuade any of the librarians that they need to demonstrate to the outside world that the librarians do things that the Library Assistants don't or can't, otherwise why pay the extra money? I'm not going to be trying again any time soon. After all, we're all grown-ups.
5 comments:
Do library assistants get paid?? I'd imagined that, like the two nerdy record shop assistants in Nick Hornby's High Fidelity, they'd turn up and lovingly de-shelve and re-shelve the stock even if you didn't pay them.
Borrowing books? From a library? Whatever next! (Our own modest library here in Boston seems to have become an internet cafe in recent months.)
gd: "paid" is a relative term. They get the crusts that the ducks won't eat.
Charlie's dad: It's a difficult balance to make: on the one hand, the internet and electronic information resources like e-books are a new way of delivering the traditional library service; on the other hand, if you don't define the electronic services you're providing you end up being a second-rate cybercafé. So most of us in the public library sector have ended up being a second-rate cybercafé...
Had I been writing this blog when we were installing the People's Network I'd now be unemployable in the public library sector. I probably am anyway.
There was some campaigning for a Coffee Shop here at the memorial Library and Sauna as we have hot and cold running networks already and the start of a significant clientele of indigents, despite the gentility of our surroundings. The fact that two of the staff are trained Baristas (not lawyers, apparently) has failed to influence any decision.
I wouldn't trust some of my managers to make a cup of coffee!
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