Thank you to list members who took time to send very full responses to
my query about using students to extend opening hours. There was no
great consensus - some very strong feelings against, and some positive
responses

Responses seemed to depend on a great number of variables - making it
rather difficult to summarize for the list. However I have attempted to
to that below.
This does not include the wealth of helpful information supplied by
respondents.

I have removed identification from the replies and collated them -so if
anyone wants to see a fuller response please let me know

Thanks again for your help


Susan

______________________________________
An inquiry about the use of students to work out of hours was sent to
Lis-link and Lis-sconul

Twenty five replies were received
14 from Universities
8 from university branch libraries or standalone university colleges
2 from FE colleges

Summary of Results
Not all responses answered all of the questions so numbers may not add
up


1. Policy of employing students
4 Institutions had a policy of not employing students. 3 of these at any
time, 1 not outside core hours.

3 did not employ students because of bad experiences, the fourth because
of other libraries poor experience and also data protection issues.

The experiences cited were
 Unreliability – “they fade away at exam times” -
 Poor timekeeping
 Poor performance – particularly shelving
High turnover
Little savings as rate of pay had to be same as full employee ( London
location)
Bureaucracy and administration

2. Hours employed
17 Institutions employed students in the evenings
16 on Saturdays
12 on Sundays

3 institutions employed only postgraduate/research students
1 only employed students from other institutions

 3. Supervision

5 libraries employed students to work without supervision –
Comments
- they can phone me (senior member of library staff)
- no supervision but we are going to appoint a weekend supervisor
- no- on although I regularly call in, ring in and we have comprehensive
instructions to advise them how to deal with sudden emergencies

Shelving supervisor
Evening /Weekend supervisor 3
Day Lib staff on evening cover 3
Reader services staff member
Senior resources assistant
Learning Centre Assistant

Comments
- there is always a need for supervision
- students must always be supervised by other staff


4. What duties do the students carry out?

Shelving    13
Issue desk   11 ( 2 stressed that this was limited)
IT applications support  12
Printing queries   6
Photocopying   8
Basic security   4
Stock enquiries/stock check 2


5. What salary do you pay them?

5 libraries recruited students in open competition on same contracts as
other non student staff

University CR3  x 2
University CR2
University clerical 1-2
University clerical 1 ( shelvers)
£6.50/ hour ( x2)
£6.00/hour
£5.85/hour
£5.67/hour IT support
£5.20/hour
£5.00/hour
£4.96/hour (shelving),
£4.95/hour ( security)
£4.94/hour
£4.89/hour
£4.50/hour x 2

IT support £10,918 pro rata + holiday enhancement.

6. Training

A variety of training programmes were described.
The need for good training / testing and follow up was emphasized by
most responses.

7. Problems

Some very strong feeling were expressed about the problems of employing
students. This is a summary

Unreliability x 12
They fade away at exam time and when under pressure
(there were several mentions of exam time)
Punctuality x2
Lack of commitment x2
Turnover x 3
Poor quality performance x3
Lower quality service if no experienced staff members on duty
Cover for vacation periods
Admin overheads – time spent on recruitment, training rotas, payroll x4
Always swapping  leading to payroll complications
High absence rate/ sickness x2
Security issues -  students don’t confront other students for security
beaches leading to loss of stock
Day staff have to spend time correcting student errors

8. Benefits

Cheap
Motivated and flexible (x3)
Students comfortable dealing with student staff (x2)
Bright and intelligent – fast learners (x4)
Know the library
Frees up existing staff to carry out other duties
Can cope with unusual hours
 Helps keep the training mechanisms honed
 Easy to recruit




--
-----------------------------------
Susan Gilbert
Electronic Resources Librarian
St George's Library
St George's Hospital Medical School
Hunter Wing
Cranmer Terrace
London
SW17 0RE

[log in to unmask]
Tel 0208 725 5362
Fax 0208 767 4696




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