Sarah Nolan

This week’s readings was focused on leadership and human resources.  I found the human resources aspect in management to be interesting.  While I knew that managers had to use it to a certain degree, I was surprised at the extent that Bryson accounts for in our text.  It did not occur to me that managers use many of these type of practices when hiring and maintaining new personnel. I believed that human resource management was strictly for those in the Human Resources Departments in organizations.  While reading, I could identify some of the techniques that my previous employers used when we got new staff members.  It was really helpful for the new staff members to have direct contact with their supervisors during the first few months of employment.  As it was stated in the Sims article, a directive management approach was effective since they had little experience.  As time progressed, the supervisors exercised a more empowering approach, enabling them to become fully competent and confident staff members.  When there was a more immediate need for something to be done correctly and quickly, a more hands on approach had to be taken.  I had this experience when I was training some of my fellow staff members to work in the Passport Office that my library had.  I found that by letting the new passport agents work on the applications hands on with me commenting when necessary, they were able to learn the job quicker and easier.  However, whenever a particularly disagreeable person came in for assistance, then I had to do it myself to make sure that it was done without errors.

In the Good Hire article by Mosley and Kaspar, I noticed that it was important to link the job description with other, broader parts of the organization.  Not only is the manager called to perform a myriad of functions, but the job descriptions must be perceived to be multifaceted as well to maintain their relevance.  Mosley and Kaspar maintain that in order to have a “good hire”, words that are library specific should be kept from the job description.  While I can understand that often, using jargon limits the people applying for the job to only those who speak the same language, I disagree that it is necessary to get rid of all job specific terminology.  I have found that many libraries are changing the names of their jobs to be more “user-friendly”; but frankly, I feel that it is just dumbing down the integrity of the job.  It seems to me that by constantly changing words like ‘reference desks’ to ‘information desks’ and ‘circulation desk’ to ‘check out desk’, the library is becoming  a more homogeneous environment to other places that house books.  The library is a place of learning  and librarians are people who help others locate and access knowledge, not simply answer questions and give you books to read.  There should be a certain pride that is associated with being a librarian, and that should be reflected even during the hiring stage.