This week we asked people who hire librarians
How many people have been hired by your organization in the last fiscal year? What is the breakdown of roles (i.e. librarians, paraprofessionals, student/hourly, etc.)? Subjectively, is this figure standard or does it fluctuate year to year?
Great question for this week!
As a growing company (Jones eGlobal Library) http://www.egloballibrary.com/ , we have tripled our librarian staff from 2 to 6 over the last calendar year. Everyone is full-time and salaried employee. The specific roles are blended and it seems that there is a primary and secondary librarian for every task. We also have lots of cross-training opportunities to even out the workload and fill in gaps if a specific team member is out sick or on vacation. It is difficult to say if the number fluctuates from year to year, and yet with our current workload and collaborative projects, five is a healthy number.
– Scott Wiebensohn, Manager of Library Services, Jones eGlobal
This past fiscal year we hired one librarian for a newly created position of Instruction/First Year Experience Librarian, and we hired two library assistants/paraprofessional staff. We have a small library staff (director, 5 librarians, 5 full-time support staff) and not a lot of turnover so it was unusual for us to hire 2 staff positions this past year. We normally hire approx.. 12-15 student workers throughout the course of the year, depending upon the students’ schedules from semester to semester. Our student hiring numbers is typical for us.
– Samantha Thompson-Franklin, Associate Professor/Collections & Acquisitions Librarian, Lewis-Clark State College Library
Lake Forest (public) Library with 29.2 FTE’s hired 2 paraprofessionals for the new positions of Tech Instructors and hired 2 others to replace 2 who had retired and moved away; we also hired 2 part time professionals to replace 2 who moved on to full time positions at other libraries. This was not a standard year with a number of people retiring and 2 new positions; it does fluctuate.
– Kaye Grabbe, Lake Forest Library
We had staff cuts this past year, due to lower than expected enrollment. We were not able to replace staff who left and we chose not to fill a faculty librarian position that had been open. We’ve had some staff turnover since then and have been able to fill those positions. We did hire a part-time librarian to fill in for two librarians out on parental leave in the spring. We generally only hire when someone leaves. When faculty are tenure-track or tenured, turnover is less common. In the coming year, we have an interim dean of libraries, so we have an extraordinary faculty position to replace her. We will also have an opening for an entry-level tenure-track position coming up soon. Stay tuned if you’re a job hunter!
– Laurie Phillips, Associate Dean for Technical Services, J. Edgar & Louise S. Monroe Library, Loyola University New Orleans
We have 20 cataloguers, two of whom have training other than the MLS, e.g, IT for one. Turnover is slight, only about two replaced per year.
– J. McRee (Mac) Elrod, Special Libraries Catalouging
We hired two part-time staff, both of whom are in MLIS programs. We plan on hiring two more this fiscal year, and our hiring fluctuates based on our budget and current needs.
– Jacob Berg, Director of Library Services, Trinity Washington University
Thank YOU for reading! If you liked reading, you’re going to really love COMMENTING.
Hiring Librarians 