Anyone who knows me knows how passionate I am about internal promotion. I believe it is important that employers help their employees succeed, move up and stick around. It is a shame that people change jobs so often because the real work starts once someone has had a chance to really figure out the organization. Unfortunately, there is often too much of a focus on the national reputation of a library and they feel that they can't afford to promote a nobody.
I've recently discovered another argument for internal promotion: institutional memory.
I work with a woman I like to call The Big Brain. She is a Library Specialist (paraprofessional reference) but she's been here so long there's no difference between her and someone with a MLS. She and I work together on the floor that has the Nebraska Reference collection and all of the genealogy resources. These are two very well used collections and they require knowledge of Nebraska, Omaha and Omaha Public Library that this newbie cannot even begin to have. It is not just a matter of relearning how to use a microfilm reader (it's been about 10 years for me), or how the Nebraska Reference room is set up (they still use a card catalog). It really is a deep knowing that only someone who has been here a long time can have. Customers ask about old staff people or the way the building used to look or for a newspaper from a town I've never heard of.
I can figure out the answers...usually with the help of the Big Brain. When she has the day off, I really struggle. It reminds me of the time I (as a paraprofessional) trained a new librarian at my old library. I knew so much because I had been there for nine years and there are many things that are impossible to look up online or in the catalog. Knowledge that may not be considered reference by some but is good customer service.
I realize that it is not always possible or smart to fill every position from within. I wouldn't be here if that were the case. New people can bring new life to a library. But when the only reason a position is filled externally is because of reputation, this can be both damaging to the library and the community.
We need people like the Big Brain. Work horses. People who are committed to the organization and the city. We need these people to train newbies like me. It will be a sad day when the Big Brain retires. And don't even get me started on the Government Documents Librarian. I have nightmares about Gov Docs.
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7 comments:
i've always wanted to be a govt docs librarian. seriously. sarahn
It's all so confusing and convoluted. You can have it.
Oh and the gov docs lib here is almost 80 years old. There might be a job for you soon! :-)
Institutional memory is extremely important in places where the norms and history are handed down from people who've been around for a while. I once worked at a summer camp where none of the previous year's staff were asked back - no idea why - and it was insane. The returning campers knew more than the staff about where trails went, backpack routes, how the dining hall was run, camp traditions, etc.
It does seem odd that a library system will pay for somebody's education and then not hire them right away... Libraries aren't the only place where this happens. I have two friends who earned administrator's credentials through a special program in their school district, and then didn't get hired when they finished. They both landed principal jobs elsewhere - one in a school in the hills of Portland and the other at a posh school in Lake Oswego.
keep me posted on that job opp! oh, and it's totally true about institutional memory. i work with some older crumdgeonly (?) folks who sometimes don't seem to have really good reasons for some of their decisions, but they are my go-to people if i'm considering making changes or i need to know the history of a decision. sn
and another thing, as one who does more hopping around job to job than retaining institutional memory, there are definitely benefits to having fresh blood and new ideas. i've worked places where my coworkers had never had a different library job. that's great, but it was more difficult for them to think outside the box and to question the way things had always been done. you know what i'm saying, right? sn
My library has a staff wiki that only us catalogers seem to use regularly. It was very helpful for learning their local cataloging practices.
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