10 ms·

What Do Public Library Workers Do? (2011)

87 points by Mz 10y ago

minikites 10y ago
They've also been serious about privacy and security for longer than you think: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoia_Horn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoia_Horn
RobertKerans 10y ago
My mother works as a library assistant. From conversations with her and her colleagues, and from what I gather applies nationwide, to add to that list: - dealing with reapplying for job every six months or so. - providing security support and lookout for councillors/MPs holding surgeries (this being particularly relevant post-Jo Cox). - dealing with a working environment that physically shrinks year on year, but still has the same amount of custom. - cutting staff numbers to one for smaller libraries means doing all the work on the list, just with zero support (again, custom still the same level)
- RobertKerans 10y ago
  On the flip side, these resources are used disproportionately by the poorest, so, y'know, screw em. Replace several cheap staff with a few expensive managers and some technology that isn't remotely as useful and off we go.
  - ianai 10y ago
    Society can be such a beautiful thing. But more and more it appears to be a beautiful thing destroying itself.
    - hughperkins 10y ago
      To be fair, when I was a kid, we didn't have internet. We only had library, and computer journals, the paper kind. Nowadays, for research papers, read arxiv. For news read hackernews. For learning stuff, Google, stack overflow. Fiction? Kindle app.
      - jvehent 10y ago
        Unless you're poor. Then you don't have a computer.
        zaidf 10y ago
        A lot more poor people have a computer today than ever before. Nothing illustrates this better than seeing the homeless on their iPhones using the Starbucks wifi to access the Internet.
        RobertKerans 10y ago
        This is true, and a very, very good thing I think. But it's the prosaic stuff (how do I claim this? Where do I actually look for information? What information will help me? Etc) where having a real person sit and help you is incredibly important.
        Mz 10y ago
        That's amusing as I posted this article, I am homeless and I have a laptop, tablet and smartphone. Yes, I spend my days at the library to get charge for my devices, free Wi-Fi and access to public PCs. But I am dirt poor and all my earned income comes via the internet. /PSA
        ianai 10y ago
        What do you do for securing them?
        smnplk 10y ago
        Out of curiosity, how do you earn your money via internet ? Do you make apps for people ?
        Mz 10y ago
        I do freelance writing and I run a bunch of blogs.
  - sciurus 10y ago
    Yep. This comment at metafilter has been discussed here before, I think, but it's worth linking again: http://www.metafilter.com/112698/California-Dreamin#4183210 http://www.metafilter.com/112698/California-Dreamin#4183210
    - mr_potato_face 10y ago
      Thank you for linking this. The main article being discussed made me think "okay, so administrivia, book stuff, etc. Actually doesn't sound so bad". This link, however, made me realize how emotionally draining the library can be for everyone involved.
      - w__m 10y ago
        another fun fact: librarians make change. For example, librarian in Warsaw - 450$ a month. 520$ is somehow considered a "very good pay".
edtechdev 10y ago
They do a lot of coding, too: http://code4lib.org/ http://code4lib.org/ Drupal's popular with some libraries, too: https://groups.drupal.org/libraries/resources https://groups.drupal.org/libraries/resources
Spooky23 10y ago
They do a lot. Having a kid really enhanced my appreciation for libraries and librarians. They fill vital teaching roles, host enrichment programs, help with study groups and teach kids about research. My local library system has stuff like maker events, guest sessions with 3D printers and all sorts of activities. It's an invaluable resource.
- Relys 10y ago
  I wish more libraries would turn into hacker/maker spaces. :/
  - ocdtrekkie 10y ago
    It's all about budget. My local library is in a relatively affluent town, so they've got kinda a startup space vibe they're trying to build, and obviously they've stepped up the computer lab offerings quite a bit. Another nice perk for the movie buffs among us, is that they buy 25+ copies of new movies, and checkouts are free. While the hold list means you'll wait on those titles a few months... I haven't paid to rent a movie going on ten years now. I actually worked for four years at the library, and I absolutely appreciate the heck out of it.
kllvql 10y ago
This appears to be another scalability vs human intervention argument that occurs commonly in public and private enterprises. I think much of this community favors the scalability side, but forgets that humans are available to provide better solutions in almost all areas that are currently available to computers.
Endy 10y ago
We clean up after the crap everyone leaves behind. And through it all, we try to help people and tea h them. We're forced to be janitors, curators, researchers, academics, negotiators, and entertainment all in one. It's thankless as hell. And I wouldn't change one iota of it.
vanderZwan 10y ago
When I was teaching at Malmö University, one of the professors once shared that he had noticed one constant across all universities he had attended: on average, the librarians are the most helpful, cooperative members of supporting staff, whereas IT people are the most antagonistic, least helpful people. With just one year of working experience there I already knew exactly what he meant. What we were puzzled by is what causes the difference. One reason could be some kind of selection bias for the kind of work. Another could be that in both cases the "base person" is nice in principle and that it's the work that brings out these personality differences. In that case it would be nice if one could transport "environmental fixes" from the library work floor to IT somehow.
- laumars 10y ago
  IT support can be a thankless job. People only need you when something goes wrong, which means you can get a lot of unpleasant people. It also doesn't help that non-functioning technology is often amongst the biggest of many peoples pet peeves, so they already start out from an impatient state. I can't see the same being quite as true for librarians as people aren't starting from a state where something that should be working isn't.
  - minikites 10y ago
    I used to work in IT support before becoming a librarian and my experience confirms this. Most (but not all, there were many pleasant people who called the IT desk) were in a sour mood when they called, making it hard to keep my own sunny disposition. When people come to a library desk, they're excited about any help they receive. Extending your second paragraph, when people interact with the IT desk, they're trying to go from a bad state up to their base state. When people interact with a library desk, they're trying to go from a base state up to anything above that.
    - vanderZwan 10y ago
      I can see what you mean, we ( = professor an I speculating) thought that would be factor. OTOH, people go to the doctor only when they're sick, which is also a bad state, but being a doctor isn't considered a thankless job whereas IT is. Just speculating here, but I think it has to do with how a lot of people seem to look down on IT, and tend to blame them for their problems. With doctors, the people tend to look up to them, and don't blame them for their illnesses[0]. > when they called I'm pretty sure this makes an enormous difference as well, btw, compared to face-to-face communication. So we got three examples of service work, where the interaction with the customer completely shapes the experience for everyone involved. [0] ignoring malpractice cases and such, but that's after treatment, not before.
buro9 10y ago
Hey, I know Lauren, I'll ask her to register in case anyone has questions.
laurensmith 10y ago
Oh! I put this post together :)
- Mz 10y ago
  Welcome to HN. :)
  - laurensmith 10y ago
    Thank you! :)
Jaruzel 10y ago
Probably off-topic, but all I'm going to say is, if you are even slightly bit geeky, find and marry a Librarian. You won't be sorry[1]. IT minds, and Librarian minds are very compatible as both disciplines are all about the expansion of knowledge. The endless discussions on every topic are forever energising! [1] Yes, I'm being subjective. YMMV of course, but we're over 18 years in, and still totally happy.
philipps 10y ago
I founded a non-profit that organizes learning circles for people to learn together. We used to focus on online circles, but found that we mainly reached people who were already fairly well educated. 18 months ago we switched to exclusively working with public libraries to host our learning circles, and we couldn't be happier with the results. We now see about 65% first time online learners, most are without a college degree, and even homeless people have joined. And working with the librarians has been awesome. Public libraries for the win!
- Mz 10y ago
  Good job! Check this out and see if you want to add it to your toolbox for your homeless participants: http://sandiegohomelesssurvivalguide.blogspot.com/ http://sandiegohomelesssurvivalguide.blogspot.com/

87 points by Mz 10y ago

They've also been serious about privacy and security for longer than you think: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoia_Horn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoia_Horn

RobertKerans 10y ago

My mother works as a library assistant. From conversations with her and her colleagues, and from what I gather applies nationwide, to add to that list: - dealing with reapplying for job every six months or so. - providing security support and lookout for councillors/MPs holding surgeries (this being particularly relevant post-Jo Cox). - dealing with a working environment that physically shrinks year on year, but still has the same amount of custom. - cutting staff numbers to one for smaller libraries means doing all the work on the list, just with zero support (again, custom still the same level)

RobertKerans 10y ago
On the flip side, these resources are used disproportionately by the poorest, so, y'know, screw em. Replace several cheap staff with a few expensive managers and some technology that isn't remotely as useful and off we go.
- ianai 10y ago
  Society can be such a beautiful thing. But more and more it appears to be a beautiful thing destroying itself.
  - hughperkins 10y ago
    To be fair, when I was a kid, we didn't have internet. We only had library, and computer journals, the paper kind. Nowadays, for research papers, read arxiv. For news read hackernews. For learning stuff, Google, stack overflow. Fiction? Kindle app.
    - jvehent 10y ago
      Unless you're poor. Then you don't have a computer.
      - zaidf 10y ago
        A lot more poor people have a computer today than ever before. Nothing illustrates this better than seeing the homeless on their iPhones using the Starbucks wifi to access the Internet.
        RobertKerans 10y ago
        This is true, and a very, very good thing I think. But it's the prosaic stuff (how do I claim this? Where do I actually look for information? What information will help me? Etc) where having a real person sit and help you is incredibly important.
      - Mz 10y ago
        That's amusing as I posted this article, I am homeless and I have a laptop, tablet and smartphone. Yes, I spend my days at the library to get charge for my devices, free Wi-Fi and access to public PCs. But I am dirt poor and all my earned income comes via the internet. /PSA
        ianai 10y ago
        What do you do for securing them?
        smnplk 10y ago
        Out of curiosity, how do you earn your money via internet ? Do you make apps for people ?
        Mz 10y ago
        I do freelance writing and I run a bunch of blogs.
- sciurus 10y ago
  Yep. This comment at metafilter has been discussed here before, I think, but it's worth linking again: http://www.metafilter.com/112698/California-Dreamin#4183210 http://www.metafilter.com/112698/California-Dreamin#4183210
  - mr_potato_face 10y ago
    Thank you for linking this. The main article being discussed made me think "okay, so administrivia, book stuff, etc. Actually doesn't sound so bad". This link, however, made me realize how emotionally draining the library can be for everyone involved.
    - w__m 10y ago
      another fun fact: librarians make change. For example, librarian in Warsaw - 450$ a month. 520$ is somehow considered a "very good pay".

edtechdev 10y ago

They do a lot of coding, too: http://code4lib.org/ http://code4lib.org/ Drupal's popular with some libraries, too: https://groups.drupal.org/libraries/resources https://groups.drupal.org/libraries/resources

Spooky23 10y ago

They do a lot. Having a kid really enhanced my appreciation for libraries and librarians. They fill vital teaching roles, host enrichment programs, help with study groups and teach kids about research. My local library system has stuff like maker events, guest sessions with 3D printers and all sorts of activities. It's an invaluable resource.

Relys 10y ago
I wish more libraries would turn into hacker/maker spaces. :/
- ocdtrekkie 10y ago
  It's all about budget. My local library is in a relatively affluent town, so they've got kinda a startup space vibe they're trying to build, and obviously they've stepped up the computer lab offerings quite a bit. Another nice perk for the movie buffs among us, is that they buy 25+ copies of new movies, and checkouts are free. While the hold list means you'll wait on those titles a few months... I haven't paid to rent a movie going on ten years now. I actually worked for four years at the library, and I absolutely appreciate the heck out of it.

kllvql 10y ago

This appears to be another scalability vs human intervention argument that occurs commonly in public and private enterprises. I think much of this community favors the scalability side, but forgets that humans are available to provide better solutions in almost all areas that are currently available to computers.

Endy 10y ago

We clean up after the crap everyone leaves behind. And through it all, we try to help people and tea h them. We're forced to be janitors, curators, researchers, academics, negotiators, and entertainment all in one. It's thankless as hell. And I wouldn't change one iota of it.

vanderZwan 10y ago

When I was teaching at Malmö University, one of the professors once shared that he had noticed one constant across all universities he had attended: on average, the librarians are the most helpful, cooperative members of supporting staff, whereas IT people are the most antagonistic, least helpful people. With just one year of working experience there I already knew exactly what he meant. What we were puzzled by is what causes the difference. One reason could be some kind of selection bias for the kind of work. Another could be that in both cases the "base person" is nice in principle and that it's the work that brings out these personality differences. In that case it would be nice if one could transport "environmental fixes" from the library work floor to IT somehow.

laumars 10y ago
IT support can be a thankless job. People only need you when something goes wrong, which means you can get a lot of unpleasant people. It also doesn't help that non-functioning technology is often amongst the biggest of many peoples pet peeves, so they already start out from an impatient state. I can't see the same being quite as true for librarians as people aren't starting from a state where something that should be working isn't.
- minikites 10y ago
  I used to work in IT support before becoming a librarian and my experience confirms this. Most (but not all, there were many pleasant people who called the IT desk) were in a sour mood when they called, making it hard to keep my own sunny disposition. When people come to a library desk, they're excited about any help they receive. Extending your second paragraph, when people interact with the IT desk, they're trying to go from a bad state up to their base state. When people interact with a library desk, they're trying to go from a base state up to anything above that.
  - vanderZwan 10y ago
    I can see what you mean, we ( = professor an I speculating) thought that would be factor. OTOH, people go to the doctor only when they're sick, which is also a bad state, but being a doctor isn't considered a thankless job whereas IT is. Just speculating here, but I think it has to do with how a lot of people seem to look down on IT, and tend to blame them for their problems. With doctors, the people tend to look up to them, and don't blame them for their illnesses[0]. > when they called I'm pretty sure this makes an enormous difference as well, btw, compared to face-to-face communication. So we got three examples of service work, where the interaction with the customer completely shapes the experience for everyone involved. [0] ignoring malpractice cases and such, but that's after treatment, not before.

buro9 10y ago

Hey, I know Lauren, I'll ask her to register in case anyone has questions.

laurensmith 10y ago

Oh! I put this post together :)

Mz 10y ago
Welcome to HN. :)
- laurensmith 10y ago
  Thank you! :)

Jaruzel 10y ago

Probably off-topic, but all I'm going to say is, if you are even slightly bit geeky, find and marry a Librarian. You won't be sorry[1]. IT minds, and Librarian minds are very compatible as both disciplines are all about the expansion of knowledge. The endless discussions on every topic are forever energising! [1] Yes, I'm being subjective. YMMV of course, but we're over 18 years in, and still totally happy.

philipps 10y ago

I founded a non-profit that organizes learning circles for people to learn together. We used to focus on online circles, but found that we mainly reached people who were already fairly well educated. 18 months ago we switched to exclusively working with public libraries to host our learning circles, and we couldn't be happier with the results. We now see about 65% first time online learners, most are without a college degree, and even homeless people have joined. And working with the librarians has been awesome. Public libraries for the win!

Mz 10y ago
Good job! Check this out and see if you want to add it to your toolbox for your homeless participants: http://sandiegohomelesssurvivalguide.blogspot.com/ http://sandiegohomelesssurvivalguide.blogspot.com/