Category: Administrative and Management Skills

Administrative and Management Skills

Reduce Harmful Habits: Evaluating Library Programs

| Jaime Eastman|Leave a comment
Dark blue text reads Reduce Harmful Habits. Underneath, black text reads Evaluating Library Programs. To the right of the text is an image of two speech bubbles. To the left of the text is an image of a document and magnifying glass.

This year, “traditional” New Year’s resolutions through a library lens. So far, we’ve explored ways to exercise more, live life to the fullest, eat healthier, lose weight, save money, get organized, and learn a new skill. This month, tackling one of the most common resolutions: reducing harmful habits. Rather than focusing on our own habits, we’ll explore the habits library programs develop over time. Just because we’ve always offered a program or presented it a certain way doesn’t mean that it’s still the best option. Instead, thoughful evaluation can help us find what no longer serves community needs, library goals, or even staff capacity.

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Administrative and Management Skills

Learn A New Skill: Creating Meaningful Staff Training and Support

| Jaime Eastman|Leave a comment
Blue text reads Learn a New Skill. Under a blue line, the additional text Creating Meaningful Staff Training and Support appears in black. To the left of the text is the outline of a lightbulb inside a gear. To the right of the text is the outline of a gear with tools.

This year, I’m viewing “traditional” New Year’s resolutions through a library lens. This year’s resolutions include ways to exercise more, live life to the fullest, eat healthier, lose weight, save money, and get organized. This month, we’re focusing on ourselves and different ways to learn new skills. Library programs are all about connecting patrons to ideas and resources to build their skills, but are we doing enough to support ourselves and our staff? Staff does their best work when they feel supported, prepared, and empowered to learn. We must create cultures that support continuous learning and meaningful growth beyond mandatory training. We’ll discuss ways to find and build meaningful, actionable training that inspires your staff and helps your library thrive. Learning doesn’t stop when we have a particular title or have hosted a certain program. Thoughtful training opportunities create more resilient staff, stronger programs, and better experiences for everyone.

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Administrative and Management Skills

Screen Time for Library Staff

| Ann Baillie|2 Comments

One of the most important parts of managing youth librarians is balancing everyone’s workload. Between preparing programs, collection development, overseeing public spaces, and professional development, youth librarians are busy. There’s so much to do, especially now when we are in the thick of summer reading. Managers are always trying to find new ways to make sure workloads stay manageable, and front line staff are always trying to make prioritize to stay on top of their workloads. Yet there’s one issue that can get in the way of workflow: the cell phone.

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Administrative and Management Skills

Save Money: Using Low-Cost Library Programs to Maximize Impact

| Jaime Eastman|Leave a comment
Green text reads Save More Money between a green dollar bill on the left side and a green piggy bank with a coin on the right side. Underneath, black text reads Using Low-Cost Library Programs to Maximize Impact.

This year, I’m viewing “traditional” New Year’s resolutions through a library lens. So far, we’ve explored ways to exercise more, live life to the fullest, eat healthier, and lose weight. This month, we’re looking at ways to save money. Saving more doesn’t always mean doing less. Instead of budget cuts, let’s talk about intentional spending that creates the most impact. While library budgets are unique and complicated, today’s tips apply to libraries of all sizes and situations. I’ll be looking at ways we can prioritize low-cost and no-cost programming to help stretch your budget and extend your reach.

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Administrative and Management Skills

Confessions of a Second Career Youth Librarian

| Erika Hogan|Leave a comment

From college interns to volunteers and young patrons, you work with all kinds of people all the time. You (capital L!) LOVE your job. Bursting with enthusiasm, you want to recruit folks into youth librarianship, but you’re not sure how. Here are six indicators the person you’re talking to may be a youth librarian in the making. Your mission: talk to them about librarianship before they find another path!

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Administrative and Management Skills

Lose Weight: Streamline Supplies for Sustainable Success

| Jaime Eastman|1 Comment
Yellow script reads Lose Weight. On the right, a scale stands unbalanced. On the left, a cup holds office supplies. Underneath, black text reads Streamline Supplies for Sustainable Success.

This year, I’m viewing “traditional” New Year’s resolutions through a library lens. So far, we’ve explored ways to exercise more, live life to the fullest, and eat healthier. This month, we’re focusing on the resolution to lose weight. While I can’t give you tips to drop a few extra pounds, I can offer considerations to streamline your supply processes and procedures. This may help save time and sanity, letting you focus on what matters.

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Administrative and Management Skills

“Other Duties as Assigned”= Opportunity

| ALSC Managing Children’s Services Committee|Leave a comment

That quote, “other duties as assigned” has become a catchphrase in my library. It refers to the things we find ourselves doing as part of our work that aren’t in the job description and not what our MLS degree education (where required) prepared us for. It could be ice skating in a chipmunk costume, building life-size people from chicken wire, or playing with mud. Why would we volunteer for such things? And why, as managers, would we encourage our staff to do the same? Opportunity • We do them primarily because it’s a way to keep the fun in our work. C’mon, imagine getting paid to be an ice-skating chipmunk. • Fun in our work feels like play, and play is known to stimulate parts of the brain not always used during routine tasks such as ordering materials or creating schedules. Staff can learn a new task better when work…

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Administrative and Management Skills

No subs? No Storytime! When to Cancel & Why.

| Eleanor Howell-Shryock|Leave a comment

Your alarm is blaring. Your head is pounding. You think, “I should call out today.” But wait! It’s a storytime day. Think of canceling on all those kids eager for songs and stories. What will you do? If you’ve ever had a morning like this, you aren’t alone, and you probably work in a small library without substitutes to save the day. When I started at my library, I was the sole children’s services staff member and ran multiple weekly storytimes. When I was sick, we canceled. Life went on, I healed up, and I saw those families the next week. As I’ve learned more about library operations, I’ve seen how some libraries go out of their way to avoid canceling storytime. If not well planned, this can quickly lead to subpar programs, staff working while sick, unfairly compensated labor, and spiraling scope creep. So today, I present the case…

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