Librarian resigns after told she can’t bring daughter to work anymore

Library Trustees from Jackson Memorial Library, St. George, Maine, announced a change in policy. Their three year policy of allowing librarian Michelle Ward to bring her daughter to work had to change, prompted by two letters of complaint from volunteers. The small library, open two and a half days a week, is now totally manned by volunteers since Ward resigned. More from Village Soup

January 25, 2004 by Uncategorized 6

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6 Responses

  1. nbruce says:
    January 25, 2004 at 3:42 am

    Librarian resigns
    Sounds like the best solution for all concerned. My niece is facing this at the office where she is a clerk–baby is nearing 9 months and starting to crawl.

    A toddler checking out library books could get one in trouble with child labor laws I suppose.

    Reply
  2. Anonymous Patron says:
    January 25, 2004 at 3:59 am

    Several things
    1. The pay as the librarian is probably so shitty, she could not afford day care.
    2. Ironic, since librarians are expected to somehow babysit strangers’ kids for free.
    3. Complaining volunteers: hope you’re happy now. Unless you had some type of personal problem with the librarian and you were using her child as a battering ram to get her out.
    4. The librarian should sue the library for going back on its verbal contract with her. I would have.
    5. I would rather have a professional librarian than some buttinsky volunteers, but I am sure they will be more than happy to work for free and keep that library open and cooking! Expand hours at this point! Teach BI!

    Reply
  3. Anonymous Patron says:
    January 25, 2004 at 4:53 am

    Re:Several things
    Having been in settings where folks brought their kids to work… it’s a mixed bag. I’m not sympathetic to Management By Volunteer, but I’m also not crazy about employees whose attention is divided between childcare and their job. And I don’t ever want to find out some kid was involved in ANY library circulation system. Only trained adults should be allowed anywhere near patron data.

    Reply
  4. birdie says:
    January 25, 2004 at 5:44 am

    Bring your daughter to work–NOT
    Remember the “bring your daughter to work” thing? That seems to have gone the way of giving up your airline seat to another passenger. Oh well.
    I have a feeling there’s more to the story than appears in this article(i.e., fussing and feuding in Maine, etc.)

    Reply
  5. Anonymous Patron says:
    January 26, 2004 at 1:02 am

    Re:Several things
    She should have never had the child near anything like patron info. There probably could have been a compromise. With all there is to read in a library, I am sure her daughter could have found something to do.

    I wonder if the mother also had to run the circulation desk as well?

    Nevertheless, they did promise to let her bring her daughter in, and she probably took the job because of their promise. I will bet there is a lot more to this story than is being told.

    Reply
  6. Mary Mac says:
    January 27, 2004 at 12:01 am

    (free) childcare at work
    I am assuming that the volunteers complained because they were having to watch the child instead of performing library-related tasks–or because the child’s mother was more involved in the child than she was in her [paid] responsibilities. I don’t know that I would find it charming that my 3.5 yr. old was operating a scanner. I don’t know if the optical light is dangerous for retinas, but I suspect the baby found the pretty red light irresistible, and that was why the child learned to “operate” the scanner. Did the volunteers need to wrest the tool away from an entranced child so they could check materials out? I worked in a library once where the director took off repeatedly to drive her adolescents everywhere, attend meetings, and variously be a mother on the college’s time. It’s hard not to resent that kind of behavior.

    Reply

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