News Library News Online
Vol. 22, No.1/Fall 1999

Table of Contents
Regular Features

Web Extras

News Library News
SLA News Division Home

 

Marcia MacVaneSmall Libraries
Measuring Time and Positions in the Library

By Marcia MacVane

Being in the midst of budget planning for next year has forced me to relate what we do with how much time it takes us to do it. This is a very difficult process to explain to anyone outside the library environment and it would be interesting to hear from others on how you justify hours.

I have some basic "time" measurements which I have worked out over the process of several years. The measurements work well when everything else works well. However, as anyone in the news business knows, Murphy’s Law usually interrupts most plans! This past year we have been fighting with new technology - and fighting is the correct term! All my "guesstimates" on time were so far off this year that making my budget has turned into quite a chore. With a backlog of approximately nine months of text enhancement to process, trying to do the everyday tasks while adding this workload has been a challenge for everyone.

Part of my responsibilities include managing a team of seven news clerks; several of these clerks have expressed an interest in learning library processes. To deal with our backlog, we have trained a couple of news clerks in photo archiving. To create hours out of a tight budget, we have minimized vacation coverage and used these "saved" hours for photo processing. While the library assistants work on adding the old text into the database, the news clerks process the photos. This has worked very well for us. The news clerks enjoy the added responsibilities (and salary increase!) and the library assistants certainly are utilizing the extra time by working on the database.

However, Murphy’s Law struck us in yet another area. Technology reared its ugly head yet again. All the work for the past eight months on photo processing will need to be repeated, since the archiving software used did not keep all the separations. Luckily, we do have a backup in another system - but it means reloading all the backups, reformatting them, and then transferring all the cutlines and keywords and publication information into yet another archiving system. I already know I won’t have a larger budget next year, so we will face another year of scrimping on vacation coverage to include extra work.

How do you figure your budget? Do you have a set number of hours per classification or does it vary from year to year? What are your staffing levels based on - circulation numbers, past use, etc.? If you could, please email me at mmacvane@pressherald.com and I will include the information received in a future column.

We have so many titles in this occupation that it is difficult to understand what the individual responsibilities are. For instance, my title is Reader Services Manager - sounds pretty high-falutin’, doesn’t it? My first management title was Librarian - no one had a problem understanding what that was. However, when it came time to figure out what my salary was, it was difficult to sift through all the information available. At our newspaper, the title of librarian was comparable to someone else’s library manager ... or library director ... or research manager ... or research director. Many "librarian" titles in the salary survey were NOT managers. Now, there seems to be even more "specialization" within the entire field. I have spoken to several library managers regarding titles within their staffs. There are classifications such as: library assistants, librarians, library clerks, enhancers, to name a few. If you could send me information on the staffing at your library - titles and responsibilities - I will process the information and share it with you in a future column. If you can, please send salary information as well.

So what does a Reader Services manager do? Just about everything, I think! In addition to managing the library assistants and news clerks, I do what other library directors/managers all do - budgeting, scheduling, database checking, payroll, purchases, contracts, etc. - and then do the same for all the news clerks. I also deal with the public regularly regarding information published in the paper ... basically any question or complaint dealing with news not done by a staff reporter comes to me. I spend a lot of time on the telephone! And when I can, I do some library work - enhancing and research.

In small newspapers, one is often asked to reach beyond the norm, no matter what the classification is. I wasn’t sure what managing both staffs would bring, but I have found that the constant interaction with the public and the knowledge of newspaper style and policies have enhanced my original job of library manager. I know my way around the front-end system because of my experience working with the news clerks. This has proven to be of immeasurable help during this past year. Being on the "front end" of news tips and briefs has placed me in a position of being able to more closely direct research proactively. After initial trepidation, cross-training has been a benefit to both areas. Employees in both sections have found ways to help one another technologically. If you have a "unique" job description which also includes library work, I would love to hear from you!

Marcia MacVane is Library Director at the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram. Her email is mmacvane@pressherald.com.


News Library News
SLA News Division Home

The page was reformatted on 4/6/03. The content, including URLs and contact information, on this page has not been updated to preserve the historical record.

Comments about News Library News should go to the editor.
Comments about the Web site should go to the Webmaster: newsdivisionweb@yahoo.com