ALT-1 Being a Librarian in the 21st Century
Working with the public in a local government library has to be one of the most thankless jobs you can have. I am not speaking for the librarians, who are professionals and try their hardest to avoid the circulation desk. Most are good hearted souls, who do help out, but everyone has a breaking point. You deal with the fussy customers, cranky customers, shysters trying to pull a fast one, the I'm too wealthy to deal with your sub-life form wannabe aristocrats, the humble, honest people trying very hard to pay what they can on the stupid, inane fines the library charges for late fees-all approved by the city council and shoved down the taxpayer's throats. No one makes a fuss about the fees, so they ram it. It is amazing how compliant people are when fees are hiked, if they only knew they could band together, shake up city hall, and change that. But City hall knows people are too busy just living their lives day to day.
City Hall could care even less than that, about public libraries which are sorely under funded., understaffed, and do not have enough books per capita for a city this large. Customers do not realize the constraints we are under; being short staffed, having some part of our benefits changed or eliminated every year, making our workweeks longer and longer (80 hours open a week, 7 days, 4 nights). Part of the big reason we are short staffed is applicants taking one look at the ridiculous hours we are open, and say, "no thanks".In addition, the computer system is breaking down and out of date; the Internet computers for public use are better and faster than the dinosaur models we have, and we are missing quite a few more computers, and scanners to speed things up for customers checking out.
In the old days, no non professional was allowed to do reference work, or be left alone in charge of the building itself. A librarian always had to be present. That has also changed. Now clerks are left to do reference-because there are not enough librarians-and sometimes man the building for short periods! Of course, there is no extra pay involved, this is kept quiet, as technically, it should not be happening and could have legal repercussions.
Unfortunately, Administration is either blind to all this or simply doesn't care. They are housed in the upper echelons of a Main library, and have no inkling of what goes on in what they term, "branch-land"-us. The people who are really out in the trenches, so to speak, the front lines, the Russian front. Instead, they pat themselves on the back for reporting to the board and their superiors of what a fine job they are doing running the system, when in fact, it isn't true. And if we dare speak about it? Pink slip.
Helping the public is a joy, seeing children enjoy their first books, helping them get thru their homework, finding regular customers their fav reads before they ask for them, knowing the regulars by name (they liken it to Cheers, the show), but the sad reality is, soon those of us who enjoy giving the personal touch, who can deal with the hard heads in a genteel way, will soon be a thing of the past, as self checkout machines come into being, the Internet is more and more popular than reading, and people are also checking out more movies than they check out books. A public library is a different animal than a school or other type library; you have to love books and like working with people, and love learning new things; unless you are brain dead, there's no way you can't learn something new everyday, we are keepers of knowledge. If only Administration would realize just how important those of us out in the real world really are in the scheme of things, if only city council would properly fund libraries, we could have a more educated city, instead of a city that depends heavily on cheap Mexican labor, and has staggering poverty rates. Nowhere else but Texas.
