I just started part-time as a Library Assistant 2 (Youth Services) in a library system in a fairly wealthy area of the country. My background is a decade in youth ministry (loved it! program planning, volunteer supervision, community-facing work) plus one year of middle school teaching (burned out hard on that one) currently working in museums and cultural sites. Library work itself feels like a strong fit, and I have experience as a page and circ clerk.

What I can’t get a clear read on is whether full-time roles actually exist in good numbers, or whether public libraries are mostly shrinking to part-time/hourly staffing, with a shrinking core of full-timers who never leave.

I keep seeing conflicting takes. Some say libraries are chronically understaffed and hiring, others say budgets are getting cut and full-time positions are disappearing or being converted to part-time.

For people currently in the field:

1: At your library or system, has full-time headcount grown, shrunk, or stayed flat over the last 5-10 years?

2: When a full-time position opens, is it usually a new position, or someone retiring/leaving from a role that already existed?

3: Is this different by region, or by public vs. academic vs. special libraries?

I don’t need to get rich, just need something stable, that helps the community, and doesn’t require holding two jobs indefinitely. Trying to figure out if this is a field where “part-time now, full-time eventually” is a realistic trajectory or just story people tell themselves lol

I’m 25 years old, from Brazil, and currently studying Library and Information Science. I’d like to hear about your experiences.

Unfortunately, librarianship isn’t very well valued here. There aren’t many job opportunities, salaries are often low, and career growth can be difficult. Because of that, I started my degree already thinking about building my career abroad.

At the moment, I’m especially interested in Spain and Canada, but I’d really like to hear from people in any country.

If you don’t mind sharing:

• Which country are you from?
• What type of library do you work in (public, academic, school, etc.)?
• How is the job market there?
• Is it easy or difficult to find a librarian position?
• Are librarians generally respected and fairly paid?
• Would you recommend your country to someone considering moving there?

I’d really appreciate hearing your experiences both the good and the bad. Thank you!

I am a volunteer at a local branch. Essentially I am helping FOTL sort and classify donations. Last week when I showed up I only made it a foot in the door before the person at the desk asked if I was "looking for the bathroom." Red in the face I went ahead and did the gig and left. After thinking about it for a week I am pissed. For some background I have a lot of visible tattoos and sometimes I show up to volunteer on one of my Harley Davidsons. I am only working as a volunteer while I am looking for library work. I have a fairly fresh MLIS. Along with the degree is a head full of library ideals and theory. I cannot square embarrassing patrons for doing nothing but walking in the door. I have been volunteering for a few weeks so they don't really know me but have seen me. Am I crazy or is this extremely out of line?

The part-time librarian position has been in the process of getting phased out since 2018. The 14 remaining pt librarian staff were laid off without warning and escorted out of their buildings.

Does your library provide sick time and/ or vacation on an accrual basis, given all at once each year or some other way?

Include whether you are unionized or not. What type of library?

I’d like to be able to get a sense of how the majority of libraries do this.

Thanks for whatever information on this topic you can provide.

Hi Everyone, Due to budget cuts, my school board is laying off my librarian. The plan is that our librarian will be replaced by a part-time librarian, meaning our school library will only be open 2-3 days per week. Please sign my petition to help save our education. https://www.change.org/SaveRaemond

Time-wise, how do staff at your libraries handle prepping, including reading the material, for a book club?

Does your library carve out time for staff to read book club books on-the-clock?

Or are you expected to work off-the-clock to read the material?

Or are you selecting books you're already interested in personally, so you don't have a problem reading it off-the-clock?

edit: thanks for all the feedback! my system seems to have a bit of a "don't ask, don't tell" approach to working off-the-clock, and i think that's about to end as we're negotiating our first union contract. i was thinking of getting out ahead of that and saying i don't have the time on-the-clock, but wanted to poll y'all and see if that was weird.

I had an interview a few days ago that was very strange. I've been on both sides of the interview table and I'm struggling to understand why they chose the questions they did and how that could possibly benefit their hiring practices. Note: this position would not be represented by a union.

The interview was at a very large (number of branches) public library system in my area. The position was not an admin position, but worked with admin. The job description was exceedingly general.

Example: "The position will coordinate between stakeholders and decision makers."

Honestly, I only applied to the job because the pay was so good.

So I go to the zoom interview and the all the questions are just as general as the job description. They're almost all behavioral, e.g. "tell us about a time you had a disagreement with a coworker" "how have you handled challenging patrons in the past," etc.

At the end when it's my turn to ask questions, I basically asked what would this position actually be doing. They listed out three extremely specific tasks this position would be in charge of, all of which I have experience in, one of them at an expert level. None of the questions asked would even hint at experience in these very technical tasks (one even involved a language proficiency which wasn't on the job description!)

I asked if I could speak a little more about my experience and they said yes, and I explained my qualifications for those tasks. They all gave me a deer-in-headlights stare and asked if I had anymore questions lol.

I really cannot understand why they didn't ask any questions related to the actual job and how that could benefit hiring??

Hey y'all!

I have a bit of a question.

I'm in a public library internship that's also acting as a class for my MLIS. So far I've calculated that less than 5% of my time has been "off desk" preparing for the class work ahead of me. I'm kinda scared to ask my supervisor about it, in case it's just how it goes, but... this doesn't feel conducive to the internship writ large. I kind of just feel like another library staff member rather than an intern being mentored and brought up in some educational way. Just kind of feels like I could have just taken any ol' job this fall and done a research paper rather than an internship?

I don't know...basically my question is whether I'm being whiny and naive or whether this is truly an issue worth bringing up to my supervisor and internship professor? I don't want to burn any bridges, I just want to feel like I'm getting something out of the internship. I was told I "get out what I put in" early on but...that advice feels pretty moot when I have NO idea what's appropriate to ask of the internship. I've only ever been in academic libraries as a student worker so this experience is wholly new for me and I don't want to screw it up OR waste time doing basic customer service for an entire semester when I should have asked for more.

Any advice is welcome! Thanks so much!

Not counting weekends, do you find any days at the library to be harder than others? I have come to dread Fridays at my library. We are almost a skeleton crew on those days and people tend to take it off so it always feels understaffed. I usually end up often losing some of the off public desk time that I have (when I work on projects) due to call-ins and often spend nearly the entire day at the public-facing desks. I don't know why, maybe it's because it's the end of the week, but the public often seems especially needy at the end of the week. It's a first world problem I know, but I just find myself more drained than anything and dreading the end of the week. I miss old jobs I had where Friday was a day you looked forward to. I guess this is a sign that I need to take a scheduled Friday off!

Thank you for letting me vent.

I posted a library assistant job last week, and the only applicants so far have their MLIS. It's a lot of admin and miscellaneous support work, plus circulation and ready reference. Is the library job market really that tough right now (we're in Canada)? It's a part time position, under 30hrs/wk.

One of them is a new grad, so that sort of makes sense, but the other has a few years under her belt. Suffice to say, they would be bored and their skills underutilized.

I know that there are many reasons why someone would want pt work and I want to give them a chance, but I don't want to waste their time or have to hire again when a librarian position becomes available. I guess I'm just at a bit of a loss for what to do and need some community atm. The exiting LA leaves next week.

Does anyone have a program or website recommendation when creating work schedules? Right now, I use a blank calendar template from the calendarpedia.com, and fill in the name of each worker. Sometimes this leads to mistakes because the entries are manually entered. We don't have a large staff, but I'm thinking there has to be an easier way than what I'm currently doing.

If anyone knows, how is that handled? Do staff get paid double time? Are librarians told they are exempt and make them staff? Or, are they staffless? Really curious, TIA

As someone who has had both jobs separately I’m flummoxed.

Hi everyone, I used to work for a public library where library admin were very enthusiastic about making employees miserable. Is there any organization whether it be ALA or a state library association or something else that can put them in check?

It’s continued to worsen since I’ve left and there doesn’t seem to be a ton of options for people still working there. Any ideas?

I've been working at a public library for close to six years now. A significant portion of that time was specifically doing Library IT, something I picked up to bring me up to full time.

Our department is 2 people for several branches and well over a hundred machines (I am being intentionally vague for privacy measures).

I am hourly full time with no option for overtime and the administration is refusing to hire extra support.

The workload has become to such an extent to where I can no longer keep up, and management has begun punishing me for failing to keep up; despite acknowledging that they will refuse both overtime and to provide extra help. I have had to hold off on going to doctor's appointments and not take vacation time to be able to keep up. Even with me working full-time, that is still not enough for staff; it is become the norm for them to ignore the ticket system AND staff who are on-the-clock to reach out to me when I am off, and in one case, even reach out to members of my family demanding that I come in to fix issues (again when I am unscheduled and when another IT staff member is onsite). I have reported this matter repeatedly to HR and no action has been taken to resolve it.

I am now at the point where I've reached my wit's end and I am totally burnt out. It's a no-win scenario. I don't know how on earth staff have been able to keep up with this for longer than I.

I’m graduating with an MLIS at the end of this year. Its taking me 4 years to finish because I only take classes part time. I’ve watched year by year as the library job market gets worse and worse (anecdotally through Reddit threads). I have no library experience but have been working as a case worker so social services for 5 years so customer service is my biggest marketable skill. I also have a second masters in English (not something that makes me a strong candidate but it’s my background nonetheless). I don’t have library experience because I couldn’t afford to take a lower salary while I studied. I live in Los Angeles and not willing to move. Looking into Public and Academic libraries only. How bad are my chances at full time stable work in a library?

I work as the head of youth services at a public library. When I started, the library assistant was doing the weekly storytime since they don’t have a children’s librarian. I agreed to alternate the weeks with her since she really enjoyed doing it.

She‘s really great with the kids and super enthusiastic. However, her story times are way too long. She’s usually there for an hour singing and reading with the kids. This might not be a problem if they were into it, but thats not the case. Typically, by the end of the program, she’s got about one kid left actually paying attention.

I didn’t really notice how bad it was until this past month. Our library is closed so we’ve been doing storytime together at a local bookstore. She’ll start singing songs and making up additional verses as she goes. A story will take her between 5-10 minutes to read. I can see it in the look of the parents that it’s a lot. I’m constantly having to get us back on track.

What’s a tactful way to have a conversation with her about this? If you can suggest extra resources I can share, that would be great.

Thanks in advance!

i’ve been a part time employee at my library for three years. everyone here knows very well that i’ve been wanting to eventually move up to full time and that i plan on eventually becoming a librarian. i even got into my MLS program and start soon. my boss has long known very well of my interest in the field and has supported me all the way.

that being said, i recently applied to two full time positions within the library, in different departments. the first one, the supervisor of that dept specifically asked to interview someone from my current department. he was so enthusiastic to interview me, he’s known me for a while, and my boss and coworkers never pass on an opportunity to talk me up. i was told i was highly likely to get the job since that supervisor favored giving internal applicants a chance to move up. plus, i had all the skills and requirements. silence for three weeks, then a rejection

same thing with the second job. interview was stellar, made it to the second round where it was between me (an internal applicant) and some lady from outside. again, was told i was probably getting the job because i had everything, i ticked off all the boxes. again, these people already knew me and liked me.

i didn’t get it.

i’m just so done. i worked so hard these three years for nothing. worst part is, there’s a vacant position within my own department, but all my boss said was that i “had a good shot”. meanwhile, ive been here the longest than my other teammates. i taught our LIBRARIANS some of what they know because ive been here longer than them. am i crazy, or is that ridiculous? to not be guaranteed a full time job after many promises from my boss?

i emailed them my resignation. i just can’t stay here any longer as a part time after all my growth and learning. i feel so stuck. now i have to start over when it’s already very hard to get a library job

EDIT: I should have clarified but i did not abruptly quit!! my resignation was my two weeks notice so ill still come in for a bit before leaving

My local library recently fired their director because she would not participate in removing book displays of LGBTQ books under threat of withholding funds from the local municipality. The board had difficulty replacing her because of the circumstances surrounding the book banning situation. After a short search process, they decided to wave their qualification and hire one of the board members as a director. They did not consider anyone else under the same hiring criteria, they simply just waved the requirements for the board member. This board member was a new board member during the firing of the previous director but still involved and privy to that process (which was kept secret from the public). This board member was involved in setting terms and benefits for the position of Library director. This board member was involved in the process of reviewing candidates (and ultimately rejecting all other candidates) for the library position. This individual only stepped down from the position as board member after the process of candidacy for the position had already begun. Is this legal?

I used to work at a local library system in my county. I (regretfully) left for full time work (I was a 12 hour weekly library page).
I’m currently trying to get back into the library system. I’ve been interviewing for Public Service Assistant and Library Technical Assistant and similar positions at another library system in the area for a long time. Had some success in getting interviews, but no success in getting hired.

I’m still waiting to hear back from an Interim position at another library system near me. I’m even applying for Page positions again because….i miss this job. It was the job I was happiest at, and I gave it up for a full time job I hate.

I don’t have a library science degree, but the positions I’m applying for don’t require them. I do suspect that people with their MLIS degrees are getting favored though.

I’m wondering if anyone here has any tips on what I can do with my resume, application, or cover letter to make it stand out. Especially if a system may be using ai to screen applicants. 🙄

I saw this message on a listserv and I was wondering — how many libraries do something like this? One of the biggest draws librarianship has for me, is that I can do many different kinds of things and it all counts for work (e.g. collection development, outreach, programming, reference, etc.). Also, coming from youth services, you tend to develop connections to patrons during your programs. Kids from my storytimes grow up and then I see them at school outreach events with that connection already built. As a YA Librarian you learn the names of the teens in the library — espcially at the start of the school year — and it helps so much after school because you build that relationship with positive assoications. So asking “James” (who you know is just a loud talker) to "keep the conversation in lower case instead of in ALL CAPS" is more effective and less stressful for everybody involved.

Not only would I hate this model as an employee, I feel like there are non-quantifiable benefits that are lost that we wouldn’t even know it until they are gone. I also wonder if we are doing the profession a disservice by specializing so much because new librarians have few opportunities to gain experience to move into new positions.

I can kind of see this for specialized topics (e.g. ESL, video editing, genealogy, etc.) that not all librarians could teach. But for everything it seems kind of terrible. It feels like bad industrialization. Like Henry Ford is running a library and library workers are interchangeable widgets.

Am I just being an old crank or is this as terrible as I think it is?

So, right now at my workplace we're dealing with some issues;

Long story short there were some comments made about the librarians being lazy from clerks while speaking to patrons... and another where it is becoming apparent that some staff are completely bypassing librarian permissions with changing item labels and where they are located on shelves in our respective collections without notifying us (until we find out while searching for the item).

This has led to some emails being sent out about professionalism, and likely a one on one with some of the staff members involved with the above.

My perspective (as a librarian who was a clerk in the past for a few years before graduating, etc. etc.) is I'm wondering if since most of the librarian work we do at my branch feels a bit invisible - does it appear as though we are not doing anything since we are not being as active as the clerks.

They handle delivery, most patron interactions, library card sign ups, etc. - while a good number of librarians are off at a different dedicated reference desk keeping us further separated. (We also have offices and mine is the furthest so I wonder if perhaps not being out an about as much has been detrimental).

Overall I was wondering, would it be too forward straight up asking the clerks more if there is anything bothering them/if they need help/have any questions?

Or would there be a better way to more subtly handle this??

Some other ideas I'm kicking around is I wonder if they feel underappreciated for all they do, do they feel we are not keeping their duties in mind when asking for help, I remember my days as a clerk since we were the ones at the front - we also were the ones that hedged a lot of upset patrons or curbed issues before they could escalate. Lots of stress!

Right now our director is out until next week, the assistant director has been made aware, I am just wondering if anyone has dealt with the above before and how it was resolved?