Thank goodness for great colleagues

The librarian part of my life is often a struggle these days.  Librarians everywhere face it, whether they're in a public library, an academic library, or a K-12 school library.  There's a segment of the population who believes libraries are irrelevant, that reading and the book are dead.  Given that we have over 150,000 visits a year, I feel that I could argue we are relevant to a lot of people in our community.  It is true that the number of books we send home with people has gone down, but the number of people coming through the door has gone up.  Many of them are using the free Internet access we provide.  An ever-growing number are using electronic books.  Others are coming in asking for print materials and going away with resources accessed electronically. The circulation statistics don't directly include these items.  And circulation statistics really don't tell you how many people come through the door who don't know how to use a mouse, find the address bar on an Internet browser, or read enough English to follow the instructions on how to print their document.

Several years ago the library system I work for went through a major staff reduction.  Incentives were given to those willing to retire.  After the retirees were sent off, the remaining staff was re-allocated across all 9 locations, based on a formula that was kept secret.  My branch lost 60% of our librarian hours.  We went from having 3.75 FTE Adult Services Librarians to having 1.6 Adult Services Librarians.  I am now responsible for the work that 3 librarians used to do.  [Our 0.6 FTE Librarian kept most of her previous responsibilities, but didn't take on anything additional at our branch; she now splits her time between 2 branches and has some responsibilities at each.]  When I first started working at this branch in 2000, 4 librarians did the job for which I am now primarily responsible.

I'm here to tell you: one person can't do the work of three or four - and do it well.  I can't go through my collections the way I used to.  I have to call or email my community contacts rather than going out to meet with them.  And I pile stuff on my desk to deal with later as I race from task to task, putting out whichever fire is blazing the highest at that moment; it looks like I live in a hoarder's cube...

The people I work with help to make this craziness bearable.  For the most part, they are hard working, smart, funny, and believe in the mission.  They help me in myriad ways, as simple as coming up with new ideas when I feel tapped out and as in depth as weeding a collection that I don't have time to get to.  I hope that I help them in return.