There has been a concerted movement over the past few years to move
professional staff away from front-line duties in many local authorities.
Even in those authorities where this has been done in an "improvement" frame
of mind (e.g. having professional staff working solely in service
development type roles) and not merely for cost-cutting I feel we sometimes
forget the potential impact this may have on the user and their perception
of quality.
When customers visit libraries I do feel they often automatically assume the
staff member serving them is a qualified librarian. That's not to say all
librarians are excellent and para-professionals are not, this is clearly not
the case. But just how much of the problems facing some public libraries
may be down to the potential reduction in service quality in moving
professional staff away from their front-line duties? This problem is
exacerbated if managers simply see the staffing issue as one of numbers of
bodies rather than quality and experience of staff. You can very likely get
two library assistants for one professional member of staff (especially if
the hours are carved up to be part-time); it does not always guarantee a
better service.
Anyway, good luck to the Kent staff in their struggle.
Cheers
David
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David McMenemy
Lecturer,
Graduate School of Informatics,
Department of Computer and Information Sciences,
University of Strathclyde,
Livingstone Tower,
26 Richmond Street,
Glasgow.
G1 1XH
U.K.
email: [log in to unmask]
www.cis.strath.ac.uk
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