What Do Public Library Workers Do? (2011)
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What Do Public Library Workers Do? (2011)
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Re: What Do Public Library Workers Do? (2011)
#2My mother works as a library assistant. From conversations with her and her colleagues, and from what I gather applies nationwide, to add to that list:
- dealing with reapplying for job every six months or so.
- providing security support and lookout for councillors/MPs holding surgeries (this being particularly relevant post-Jo Cox).
- dealing with a working environment that physically shrinks year on year, but still has the same amount of custom.
- cutting staff numbers to one for smaller libraries means doing all the work on the list, just with zero support (again, custom still the same level)
Re: What Do Public Library Workers Do? (2011)
#3My mother works as a library assistant. From conversations with her and her colleagues, and from what I gather applies nationwide, to add to that list: - dealing with reapplying for job every six months or so. - providing security support and lookout for councillors/MPs holding surgeries (this being particularly relevant post-Jo Cox). - dealing with a working environment that physically shrinks year on year, but stil…
On the flip side, these resources are used disproportionately by the poorest, so, y'know, screw em. Replace several cheap staff with a few expensive managers and some technology that isn't remotely as useful and off we go.
Re: What Do Public Library Workers Do? (2011)
#4My mother works as a library assistant. From conversations with her and her colleagues, and from what I gather applies nationwide, to add to that list: - dealing with reapplying for job every six months or so. - providing security support and lookout for councillors/MPs holding surgeries (this being particularly relevant post-Jo Cox). - dealing with a working environment that physically shrinks year on year, but stil…
On the flip side, these resources are used disproportionately by the poorest, so, y'know, screw em. Replace several cheap staff with a few expensive managers and some technology that isn't remotely as useful and off we go.
Society can be such a beautiful thing. But more and more it appears to be a beautiful thing destroying itself.
Re: What Do Public Library Workers Do? (2011)
#5Earlier quoted context omitted.
On the flip side, these resources are used disproportionately by the poorest, so, y'know, screw em. Replace several cheap staff with a few expensive managers and some technology that isn't remotely as useful and off we go.
Society can be such a beautiful thing. But more and more it appears to be a beautiful thing destroying itself.
To be fair, when I was a kid, we didn't have internet. We only had library, and computer journals, the paper kind. Nowadays, for research papers, read arxiv. For news read hackernews. For learning stuff, Google, stack overflow. Fiction? Kindle app.
Re: What Do Public Library Workers Do? (2011)
#6Earlier quoted context omitted.
Society can be such a beautiful thing. But more and more it appears to be a beautiful thing destroying itself.
To be fair, when I was a kid, we didn't have internet. We only had library, and computer journals, the paper kind. Nowadays, for research papers, read arxiv. For news read hackernews. For learning stuff, Google, stack overflow. Fiction? Kindle app.
Unless you're poor. Then you don't have a computer.
Re: What Do Public Library Workers Do? (2011)
#7Earlier quoted context omitted.
To be fair, when I was a kid, we didn't have internet. We only had library, and computer journals, the paper kind. Nowadays, for research papers, read arxiv. For news read hackernews. For learning stuff, Google, stack overflow. Fiction? Kindle app.
Unless you're poor. Then you don't have a computer.
A lot more poor people have a computer today than ever before. Nothing illustrates this better than seeing the homeless on their iPhones using the Starbucks wifi to access the Internet.
Re: What Do Public Library Workers Do? (2011)
#8Earlier quoted context omitted.
To be fair, when I was a kid, we didn't have internet. We only had library, and computer journals, the paper kind. Nowadays, for research papers, read arxiv. For news read hackernews. For learning stuff, Google, stack overflow. Fiction? Kindle app.
Unless you're poor. Then you don't have a computer.
That's amusing as I posted this article, I am homeless and I have a laptop, tablet and smartphone.
Yes, I spend my days at the library to get charge for my devices, free Wi-Fi and access to public PCs. But I am dirt poor and all my earned income comes via the internet.
/PSA
Re: What Do Public Library Workers Do? (2011)
#9They do a lot of coding, too: http://code4lib.org/
Drupal's popular with some libraries, too: https://groups.drupal.org/libraries/resources
Re: What Do Public Library Workers Do? (2011)
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
Unless you're poor. Then you don't have a computer.
That's amusing as I posted this article, I am homeless and I have a laptop, tablet and smartphone. Yes, I spend my days at the library to get charge for my devices, free Wi-Fi and access to public PCs. But I am dirt poor and all my earned income comes via the internet. /PSA
What do you do for securing them?