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July 11, 2007
Tech competencies: what do we need to know to do our jobs (well)?
A lot of chatter has been happening about the technology skills and competencies that a library staff member should have. Emily Clasper at Library Revolution talks about the minimum tech competencies for librarians. David Lee King bumps it up a notch to include competencies that a 2.0 librarian should have. Jessica at Cool Librarian talks about tech competencies and the impact that varying skill sets have on the different generations, and often position-levels, in libraries.
I'm glad to hear others chiming in on this issue, mostly because my recent publication, Technology Competencies and Training for Libraries, represents a lot of my work with this subject and a lifelong interest in teaching and training.
Competencies are truly the best way to get your staff up to par and all on the same page with tech skills. We all have the same stories: staff who just haven't been trained enough; staff who simply don't know what is expected of them tech-wise because no one took the time to write those expectations out; trainers fumbling around haphazardly to train staff without really knowing what the needs are; staff members with the same job but, one relies wildly on the other to do all the tech-oriented stuff, and yet they get paid the same. If you create a set of competencies, assess the staff on their skills, train them as needed, then reassess, you are in good shape as a library. You have a continuous training program available, a way to adequately describe people's positions and evaluate them, and best of all--you've built a culture of learning in your institution, and that, my dears, is priceless.
If this is a topic that interests you, you can come see me talk about competencies at a free webinar for WebJunction, Core Competencies for Library Staff, on July 25th at 11am PST. I hope to see you there!
July 11, 2007 | Permalink
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Zero Based Library School- I have this idea about reforming our education. I've started a group on Facebook and will be adding some of your ideas, and David King's, to the mix.
Let's teach and train our professionals to their full potential...
Posted by: Dynamic Librarian | July22, 2007
Unfortunately, it becomes an option when you're working with civil service libraries. And because I work with many libraries, the group of people I'm referring to constitute only a few per library. But put them all together, and the group s pretty large!!
Posted by: Emily | July18, 2007
Fair enough. :) I guess I've been lucky enough to work at libraries where this is not a problem. While some of the staff are less technically savvy than others, no one is so bad as to be incompetent at their job, and the two hires I can think of who couldn't understand the systems after a trial period were let go. It rather boggles my mind that not dealing with the issue is even an option.
Posted by: Meg | July12, 2007
I've gotten some criticism over my little list from people who still want to leave the "tech stuff" to the "techies." But I don't think it is asking too much that librarians learn the basic skills that pretty much anyone working an office job these days must know. I mean, we're talking about sending email attachments, for goodness sake!
And yes, it does impact on many librarian's ability to do their job. I can't tall you haw many calls I get each week from librarians who have a minor problem that would be solved easily if they could only find out their IP address or create a shortcut on their desktop! And I can't even count the number of times an OPAC training session with librarians has turned into "How to Use a Browser 101."
I hope I can make the webinar... I'm on babysitting duty that day, though. Hopefully my son will take a nap like a good boy! :)
Posted by: Emily | July12, 2007
I don't know for sure, but I would imagine it will be archived.
Posted by: Sarah Houghton-Jan (LiB) | July11, 2007
Meg, you make a good point. Complementary skills are one thing. However, when a person clearly doesn't have the skills required for his or her position, management really needs to think about reassigning them. We're not talking about rote knowledge here, as in the readers advisory example you gave, but skills. Let's think about a staff person is a librarian, working the public service desk, and yet cannot use a mouse, not b/c she hasn't been trained, or hasn't been asked to, or b/c she has a disability, but b/c she has just not been able to absorb that skill. So she has to send in all her book orders orders by paper, requiring another person to do data entry on her orders, while everyone else's orders are put in by them through the computer. And when a patron needs help using the library's online catalog when she's the only person working the desk, she has to tell them they can't get help. When one person's lack of skill causes an undue burden on someone else's workload, or bad service to the public, that is when I would step in as a supervisor and say "Whoa! Something needs to change here!" I think it's something that is case-by-case, but how much animosity festers among staff b/c people are having to fill in and do parts of other people's jobs for them? I really feel, in the area of technology, that this is something we can remedy with competencies and adequate training.
Posted by: Sarah Houghton-Jan (LiB) | July11, 2007
Hey Sarah, do you know if the Webcast is going to be archived? I'd really like to attend, but I have to be at a 3-day (ALL day) MS Sharepoint training. Believe me, I'd rather be anywhere else, though it's nice they think to include a librarian in what is going to be almost entirely attended by IT folks.
Posted by: Meredith | July11, 2007
When you said: "staff members with the same job but, one relies wildly on the other to do all the tech-oriented stuff, and yet they get paid the same"--that was dangerous ground. There are very few positions whose holders handle the responsibilities exactly the same way. I do much more tech stuff than my coworkers. On the other hand, my coworker J can kick my ass 6 ways to Sunday in reader's advisory. I can't tell you how invaluable she is when someone walks up to the desk and says, "I read this book with a blue cover. It was a police procedural set in England, and the main character was in his 40s." She just starts reeling off possibilities until they go, "THAT one!" She's breathtaking.
There's a difference between what skills are required for a job and what skills are suggested, and coworkers may have complementary skills without expecting to have different pay scales, I think.
Obviously, any good evaluation would take both sets of skills into account, and you would hope the training would work to broaden each person's experience and skills... but at the same time, J will never have my computer skills and I'll never have her memory for books and series, and I don't necessarily think either of us should be penalized.
Just something to think about. :)
Posted by: Meg | July11, 2007
