Library Support Staff Jobs

This popped up in the list of “Recently Updated Weblogs” list on the Typepad login page. It’s called
Library Support Staff Jobs. Pretty cool.

July 22, 2005 by rochelle Uncategorized 6

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Anonymous Patron says:

July 22, 2005 at 5:34 pm

Term “support staff” is degrading
We are your peers. We are professionals too. We are not here to support your egos. We should be a team.

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rochelle says:

July 23, 2005 at 7:50 am

Re:Term “support staff” is degrading
Pardon. I agree with you about being a team, but I don’t think that most people who use the term (including many non MLS library workers) are purposefully putting down the large majority of library employees. I usually use the generic term “library workers,” but used the name of the website for this post. What is your preferred term for non MLS library staff?

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Curmudgeony says:

July 24, 2005 at 12:51 am

Re:Term “support staff” is degrading
I use the word “Library Folks” when refering to the collective people that work in libraries. I figure its a poor term to use, but less insulting then paraprofessional or support staff.

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Mock Turtle says:

July 24, 2005 at 2:07 am

Re:Term “support staff” is degrading
I, too, would like to hear any & all suggestions for better terminology.

One of the problems I have with both “paraprofessional” and “support staff” is that both terms are framed as negatives: describing us in terms of what we are NOT rather than in terms of what we ARE.

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slashgirl says:

July 24, 2005 at 11:51 pm

Re:Term “support staff” is degrading
Personally, as an LT, I have no problem with Library Support Staff. If it were Librarian Support Staff, I’d have issues with it. To me, Library Support Staff says we’re supporting the Library, NOT the mls directly. I loathe the term paraprofessional which I think is far more demeaning than Library Support Staff could ever be.

In our school board, the umbrella term for non-teaching staff is Support Staff. *shrug*

When the LTs are referred to as a group, it’s usually Library Staff. However, this wouldn’t work for public or even university libraries as it would include the MLSs.

I think I bugged the principal (PHP) the first couple of inservices she did with us on the the School Improvement Plan. Almost everytime, she would write down “teachers” to mean the staff. I kept correcting her. When the items referred to affected or involved all staff, she should use “staff”. She caught on, eventually.

One of the divisions of Library Staff in our contract is Library Support Worker which basically equals Library Clerk. It’s for people who have no formal library training but have worked in a school library for years, and have no intention of getting training. They were grandmothered into the contract when the union came in and to my knowledge, no new hires fall into that category. LSWs get a lower rate of pay, too.

I dunno, do we need to think up a new term? Library workers is fine but it can also include MLSs. Hmmm…maybe Non-MLS Library Employees (NMLEs, hmm, to close to enamels or anomolies). Or maybe Library Staff without MLS (LSWM). Non-Librarian Library Staff(NLLS)? I dunno.

s/

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rochelle says:

July 25, 2005 at 12:05 am

Re:Term “support staff” is degrading
I haven’t seen much agreement amongst non-MLS library workers about what to call themselves, but it’s a passionate discussion I’ve seen several places.

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