ACRL New England Chapter News Online Fall, 2001, No. 94

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ACRL/NEC Access Services Interest Group: First Program On Student Hiring And Training In College Libraries

Ellen Royalty
University of Massachusetts, Boston

Approximately 75 librarians attended ACRL-ASIG's first program on June 26, 2001 at Curry College in Milton, Mass. The Program theme was "Student Hiring and Training in College Libraries". Leslie MacPherson Artinian from Hilles Library, Harvard University spoke on Student Employee Evaluations. She has been using mid-semester evaluations of student employees with great success. Students become aware of any improvements necessary and the supervisor gains valuable insight into library operational issues. Before the evaluations Leslie asks the students to reflect on their work experiences and to be prepared for a two-way discussion. Afterwards, she summarizes the interview and any goals that she and a student agree upon. She also described how she asks students for feedback on commonly asked questions and then incorporates those questions into a quiz. Another suggestion she made was to post pictures of all library staff, so that both full-time and student staff could put names and faces together.

Leslie Becker from Levin Library, Curry College spoke on student employee hiring and training. She outlined strategies for hiring and training the best people for the job. She expressed her own philosophy as "Attitude determines altitude" and provided handouts on skills and traits of exceptional student employees and sample interview questions. She also stressed the importance of job "fit" and an awareness of using multimedia for training student assistants.

Maryann Gallant, Director of Academic Computing at Curry College spoke on using Blackboard, online course software, for student supervision. She uses Blackboard to track payroll and other administrative procedures such as posting the library's schedule and the students' schedules. She has also used it as an assessment tool to monitor students' understanding of job functions.