Pros
-Love what I do. -Love my co-workers and direct supervisors. -Patrons here are generally pleasant. -I wish I made more but the salary is competitive in the field and the benefits are excellent. -Now that floating is finally gone, I can do real collection management work which is fun. -Flexibility with programming: if I have an idea, I can generally run with it to see how it goes.
Cons
-Buying furniture that isn’t falling apart seems to be impossible. -My building needs a renovation but it could be years until that happens. -We keep losing positions. -All of the above makes me feel worse when I see how many promotions happen centrally. “Magically,” (read: probably from branch positions we’ve lost) there is money to promote people or make brand new support positions that aren’t meaningful to public service. But god forbid we replace a broken chair in a branch or hire another staff. -Most senior leaders and people in “support” departments are really out of touch with what actually happens in public libraries. Why aren’t these people experienced librarians?
