by Jay Rosen<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I recently spoke with Jennifer Gellmann, Assistant Division Manager of the Society, Sciences, and Technology (SST) division at Brooklyn Public Library\u2019s (BPL) Central Library. Given my interest in adult services and reference librarianship, I was eager to learn about Jennifer\u2019s work and the day-to-day challenges and rewards of her job.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jennifer began by giving me a brief\noverview of SST\u2019s scope and collections, and explaining its relationship to the\ngreater Adult Services department at Central Library. SST is staffed by 8-full\ntime \u201cAdult Librarians,\u201d and has a large and diverse physical collection with books\non philosophy, psychology, social sciences, science, technology, and industry.\nSST also has digital collections, special collections containing government\npublications and legal documents, and a small reference collection. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
SST is but one of four divisions making\nup the Adult Services department at Central Library. Other divisions include \u201cLanguages\n& Literature,\u201d \u201cHistory, Biography, & Religion,\u201d and \u201cArt & Music.\u201d\nRelated adult-centered divisions include BPL\u2019s Business and Career Center,\nwhich offers services for jobseekers and small businesses, the Information\nCommons, which delivers technology-related programs and services in lieu of a\nphysical collection, and the Brooklyn Collection, a local history archive. BPL\u2019s\nCentral Library is also home to an Adult Learning Center, which provides ESOL\nclasses, test prep, and related educational services to adults. In Jennifer\u2019s\nview, the various divisions and distinctions among adult service oriented\ndepartments are \u201cunnecessarily complicated\u201d and a vestige of prior administrations.\nFor the most part, these departments stand alone, with little inter-departmental\ncommunication and collaboration (more on this later). <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jennifer described her role as involving a combination of supervisory, administrative, and public facing duties, with the ratio among these tasks varying depending on particular staffing and library needs. However, she did emphasize that public service is the most significant aspect of her job and the work of her department more generally, with all other responsibilities following from this priority. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Public service duties in SST include working at its reference desk and contributing to virtual chat and email reference services. When I asked about the typical information needs of her patrons, Jennifer told me the \u201cvast majority\u201d of patrons visiting SST are looking for a book on a particular topic. She pushed back on the notion of print being less important in today\u2019s digitally connected age, despite circulation statistics dropping slightly each year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
For the most part, SST is able to successfully meet patron requests, but Jennifer did mention a couple of common issues her department runs into. For one, certain popular books are always in demand to an extent that BPL can\u2019t accommodate. This means patrons often have to place holds and wait several weeks to get materials they need. SST also receives occasional requests for textbooks, but does not purchase them for their collection; as a result, they have to refer patrons to local universities and academic libraries. Despite having one of Central Library\u2019s most expansive physical collections, \u201cyou can\u2019t make everybody happy.\u201d
Contrary to many branch libraries that serve fairly defined and specific local communities, Jennifer explained that Central Library serves people from all over Brooklyn. As a result, SST does not serve any one particular demographic. Jennifer emphasized that her work experience varies from branch library service in a couple important ways. For one, there is a great deal of segmentation between different departments at Central Library, with many patrons never stepping foot in the SST division. Because of this, Jennifer\u2019s staff is less familiar with their information needs, which is usually more apparent in smaller branch libraries. In addition, Jennifer explained that branch library staff tend to \u201cwear a lot of hats\u201d, whereas staff at Central Library by and large have a narrower set of responsibilities. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jennifer was refreshingly honest\nwhen describing the challenges of her work. In her view, SST\u2019s primary public\nservice challenge is dealing with the anger and confusion of patrons with undiagnosed\nand untreated mental illness. \u201cIt\u2019s a problem no one has really solved yet,\u201d\nshe told me. Though her staff takes a patient and tolerant approach in these\nmoments, and does their best to regard every request as legitimate, \u201cthere\u2019s\nonly so much we can do.\u201d And while SST staff occasionally refers homeless\npatrons to local service agencies, they choose not to refer mentally ill\npatrons due to their lack of expertise with mental health issues. Interestingly,\nBPL hired a full-time social worker a few years ago to help respond to this\nneed, but are currently without one. Until a new social worker is hired,\nJennifer and her staff will continue to be seen by some patrons as \u201cde facto\nsocial workers,\u201d without the necessary training, expertise, or support. From\nwhat I have heard, this appears to be a major unsolved problem for many\npublic-facing library staff around the country. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In further describing the\nchallenges of her job, Jennifer highlighted a general lack of communication\nbetween higher administration and the rest of BPL\u2019s staff. I witnessed the same\ndynamic firsthand during my time at Cleveland Heights Public Library system,\nand in Jennifer\u2019s opinion this problem plagues most other larger library\nsystems. Though I\u2019m sure it\u2019s easier said than done, I find it both strange and\ndeeply ironic that institutions built to efficiently organize and distribute information\nsuffer from such poor inter-departmental communication. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jennifer also acknowledged the\ndifficulties of finding and retaining good staff on a limited budget. As she\nput it, \u201cit\u2019s hard to make a life and have a family in New York City on a\nparticular salary level.\u201d This unfortunate fact this has led to a sharp\ndistinction between \u201clifers\u201d (Jennifer\u2019s term)\u2014 those Jennifer\u2019s age and\nolder who have worked in libraries for decades and live with relative financial\nstability \u2014 and younger staff who are unable or unwilling to commit to the\nfield indefinitely for financial reasons. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Though very frank about the\nchallenges of her position, Jennifer expressed a very clear enthusiasm for her\nwork. She described the main benefits of her job as providing good public\nservice and helping people locate materials that are meaningful to them. Jennifer\nalso expressed contentment with working in \u201cmiddle management,\u201d citing the mix\nof public service, committee participation, and administrative roles inherent\nto her work, as well as the increased \u201cheadaches\u201d that seem to come as one\nmoves higher up in library administration. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Significantly, Jennifer told me that the information needs of her patrons have remained relatively stable over time, with the main change being a gradual decline in \u201creference ready\u201d questions. Erik Bobilin, an Adult Librarian at SST I briefly spoke with, spoke to a more general decline in reference transactions in his experience, likely due to the ease of independently using information technologies. However, both Jennifer and Erik claimed that their division still regularly receives open-ended and more involved research-related reference questions.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When I asked Jennifer what qualities she thinks are needed to succeed in adult services, she emphasized soft skills, including communication skills, the ability to work with a wide range of people, a willingness to answer a variety of different questions, and, above all, patience. This last quality is so important \u201cbecause the patron doesn\u2019t always know what they want,\u201d and so public-facing staff may need to spend significant time interviewing a patron before unearthing their ultimate question.\u00a0 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
by Jay Rosen I recently spoke with Jennifer Gellmann, Assistant Division Manager of the Society, Sciences, and Technology (SST) division at Brooklyn Public Library\u2019s (BPL) Central Library. Given my interest in adult services and reference librarianship, I was eager to learn about Jennifer\u2019s work and the day-to-day challenges and rewards of her job. Jennifer began […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":687,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,244],"tags":[514,333,515,185,186,187,516],"class_list":["post-6355","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-rabina","tag-adult-services","tag-brooklyn-public-library","tag-central-library","tag-public-libraries","tag-public-library","tag-public-space","tag-sst"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentwork.prattsi.org\/foundations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6355","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentwork.prattsi.org\/foundations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentwork.prattsi.org\/foundations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentwork.prattsi.org\/foundations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/687"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentwork.prattsi.org\/foundations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6355"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/studentwork.prattsi.org\/foundations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6355\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6363,"href":"https:\/\/studentwork.prattsi.org\/foundations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6355\/revisions\/6363"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentwork.prattsi.org\/foundations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentwork.prattsi.org\/foundations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentwork.prattsi.org\/foundations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}