GEN: Student workers and volunteers

[Martin Miller <MartinJ500@AOL.COM>]

Hello everyone!

As a soon to be school librarian, I need some information from the practicing
folks!  I'm writing a paper to finish up an Administration class to get my
MLIS this summer.  I would appreciate if you would respond to the following
questions/discussion points concerning problems/issues surrounding student
workers and volunteers.  Please feel free to respond to any or all of the
points.  No names or locations will be used.  I'm just looking for some of
the problems, etc., that using unpaid workers might cause.  Please respond to
my email address and not the list as soon as possible.  Thanks in advance for
your input!

1.  Do you actively recruit your adult volunteers?  How?
2.  Do you get to choose your student workers, or do you have to take anyone
who shows up or is sent by the office?
3.  What kind of training do you provide for your student workers?  For the
adult volunteers?
4.  Do you make a distinction, in terms of types of jobs performed, between
what student workers do and what adult volunteers do?
5.  Do you do any kind of performance appraisal for you student workers?
Adult volunteers?
6.  Have you ever had to "fire" a student worker or an adult volunteer?  What
were the circumstances?  If you have never faced this situation, how would
you handle it if you had to?
7.  Since these people aren't paid, how to you recognize your student workers
and adult volunteers?
8.  If your unpaid staff is crucial to the operation of your library, how do
you handle "no shows?"
9.  Student workers and volunteers: A blessing or a curse?
10.  Other considerations not covered.

Martin Miller / Graduate Student
Graduate School of Library and Information Science/University of Texas at
Austin
martinj500@aol.com

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