The Library Staff Development Handbook (how To Maximize Your Library’s Most Important Resource)

By (author) Mary Grace Flaherty; By (author) Flaherty, Mary Grace
Short description/annotation
Using examples, tips, suggestions for resources, samples, and anecdotes from a wide variety of library practitioners and settings, The Library Staff Development Handbook shows how to create an environment that nurtures individuals while encouraging staff opportunities in order to generate optimal institutional performance.
Description
The Library Staff Development Handbook: How to Maximize Your Library’s Most Important Resource provides practical tips, suggestions for resources, and concrete examples for addressing the multiple and varied aspects of staff development. From crafting a job description to recruitment, hiring and retention, and from progressive discipline and succession planning to continuing education, performance appraisals, and the importance of workplace fun, this handbook can serve as a companion for managers, supervisors and library staff as they negotiate the challenging range of staffing issues and the opportunities they provide in the library setting.
Table of contents
Chapter 1 Essential Background Chapter 2 Staffing and Organizational Planning Chapter 3 Attracting the Best and Brightest Chapter 4 Staff Engagement: Creating Opportunities Chapter 5 Staff Development Chapter 6 Staff Evaluation Chapter 7 Additional Funding Sources for Staffing Activities Chapter 8 Wrapping Up
Review quote
Flaherty offers library staff with varying levels of supervising experience an accessible, well-organized guide filled with a plethora of resources. Drawing on firsthand experience, the author provides valuable advice on everything from recruiting prospective candidates and cultivating a positive workplace culture to promoting continuing education and conducting ongoing performance appraisals. New supervisors will find rubrics and charts on, for instance, evaluating job candidates’ interview responses, invaluable. Each chapter ends with a bibliography. While there are many materials on staff management, Flaherty’s volume stands out for its relevance to libraries. VERDICT: Highly recommended for current and aspiring library supervisors interested in building their management skills and developing an efficient and cohesive staff.
Review quote
Flaherty, assistant professor at the School of Information and Library Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, lays out the basics for leading a successful library staff, beginning with a compelling argument for stepping back from daily duties to proactively focus on staff development.... Flaherty reveals her breadth of experience, which makes the book applicable to just about any library environment—public, academic, and special—and solo librarians are also specifically addressed. This is an essential resource for new supervisors or those trying to solve a staff-retention or morale problem.
Review quote
The Library Staff Development Handbook by Mary Grace Flaherty is just the book to guide both the seasoned and newbie library supervisor alike.
Review quote
Librarians and library supervisors who have the responsibility for empowering and nurturing their staffs will find real gems of practical advice, templates, tips, and personal connections in this staff development handbook. In this guide, Flaherty has captured the positive, supportive, and nurturing tone that libraries must create within their organizations to recruit, hire, train, and maintain effective and engaged staffs. Supervisors will want to keep this book handy and refer to it often.
Review quote
A key feature of The Library Staff Development Handbook is the inclusion of case studies and templates to help put staff development concepts into practice. . . . The author strikes an excellent balance between providing a general overview of staff development topics an