UIUC Library Staff Development and Training

Staff Development and Training

September 6, 2005

1:00-2:30 pm

428 Library

Present: Beth Woodard, Tom Teper, Susie Duncan, Zoe Revell, Diana Walter, Michael Norman, John Weilbe, Lyn Petrie

Absent: Lisa Hinchliffe, Cindy Kelly, Sue Searing

A welcome was extended to Lyn Petrie, the newest member of the committee.

The minutes of the last meeting were distributed and comments solicited.
Beth updated the group on an additional budget request.
The status of an acting coordinator during Beth’s sabbatical was discussed. It was agreed that committee members will take turns acting as “hosts” for training functions so that the acting person won’t have to function in this capacity. Additionally, it was discussed who might be asked to chairs subgroups so that the acting person could rely on others to help. Student training: Mary Laskowski or David Ward; Customer Service: Sue Searing; Supervisory training: Cindy Kelly; Orientation: Cindy Kelly.
The committee discussed how to carry out needs assessment this year. The group suggested that groups can be asked for input, such as divisions and LSSC this spring, and that we can do focus groups next fall, with another survey the year after that.
John reminded Beth that the Experts list survey still needs to be distributed.

Time Management/Delegation sessions

Delegation

Problems—more time to explain to someone else than to do it yourself; problem with letting go of the quality; giving clear instructions: easier to delegate ongoing tasks than one-time only projects; sometimes projects seem really easy until you get quite deep into it

Having students search missing items in the stacks

follow up with vendor regarding product or service questions
schedule a meeting or a room
request clearances for Voyager for new hires
documenting processes (like how to find something in Voyager acquisitions module), including proofreading, finishing up and finalizing
file management
adding security strips to journals currently received
Find all the business school rankings for the past 25 years (this project seemed simple in that the student should have been able to go the same issue each year and photocopy it. In reality, it was more complex. Sometimes it was in a special issue, it changed months, it split into graduate and undergraduate rankings, the journal was in several locations, etc.)
Work on a clean up report (but find out half way through it that some things weren’t included.)
Work on printouts of missing in transit reports (complicated to troubleshoot: check location in stacks, in other libraries, etc.)
Correspondence, routine or non-routine. (staff don’t always seem to know communication standards, such as a letter or email need a greeting, and a closing, etc.)
Hiring, supervising, training new student employees
Circulation desk activities (pulling holds, call slips, turnstile counts, which are repetitive tasks, and work with same set of students routinely)

Time Management

NOTE: about ½ of the staff are public service employees, which are more akin to secretary and receptionists, so that a certain portion of the day they are working a circulation or reference/information desk where there job is to answer questions over the phone, in person, by email, and sometimes by chat messaging services, but also with specific tasks to do.

handling email (based on your nearness to quota, check all day long, or just ½ hour in the morning and the afternoon, especially when some of it is related to routine aspects of work, some is related to service activities for the professional association, etc.)
balancing work and school (since many staff are also taking classes)
Stacks of items to order (25 or more), which requires checking the catalog to see if the library already owns, checking to see if the item is still in print, and who would provide it, verifying ISBN and price, etc. Average of 12 minutes each, but some could take hours.
handling a question about a bill for a lost book
help a patron with a reference question
directing another patron to the nearest restroom
training a new student (who only overlaps with you for this one hour each week)
answering questions from a patron who is SURE that they’ve returned a book. (this involves checking the shelf; looking on the patron’s account; checking the library where the patron swears they returned it, etc.)

The group liked the topic titles: Need More Time? Maybe not…Learn How to Get More Time Out of the Time You Have

And

How to avoid getting back that which you gave away….delegating with ease

Respectfully submitted,

Beth Woodard

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Library Gateway Homepage
Comments to: bswoodar@uiuc.edu
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