Support

Personnel

Managing personnel in a small library is challenging.  It is difficult to know labor laws for the state of Texas much less the U.S.   Most municipal and county libraries have an attorney on staff or by contract and should rely on the attorney for any legal help they may need for personnel issues. 

Each position in your library should have a written job description.  The library should also have a personnel policy.  City and county libraries should have a personnel policy from their organization’s human resource department.  There are links below to personnel policies that can be used by non-profit libraries.  A site that offers information on performance evaluations for library staff may be found here - WebJunction sample job performance evaluations. 

The AALS Professional Collection has several titles that deal with personnel – Evaluating Library Staff, Human Resource Management in Libraries, Recruiting Library Staff, Hiring Library Employees, Supervising Staff, Staff Development: A Practical Guide, Practical Help for New Supervisors and Neal-Schuman Directory of Public Library Job Descriptions.  Please call the AALS Office at 21-/207-2609  in order to reserve these titles.

The sites listed below have a range of job descriptions for large and small libraries.  These sites are recommended.

Library Job Descriptions from Pennsylvania

Maine State Library – Job Descriptions

State Library of Ohio 

WebJunction (Connecticut) 

Massachusetts Sample Job Descriptions Collection 

Library Personnel Policies

Sample Library Policies for the Small Library 

Free Management Library (Labor, Policies, Workplace Issues) for non-profits 

Personnel Policy (Template) 

Maine State Library Personnel Policy