I’ve been at SJCPL almost 14 years and I’ve seen a lot of changes. We just posted the Head of Circulation job and it really strikes me how much this particular job has “shifted.”
Lok at these excerpted techie duties:
4. Develop and maintain circulation training materials for system-wide use and oversee training procedures of all new Circulation staff.
5. Manage Innovative/Millennium circulation products systemwide, including recommending new products, working to implement software and hardware changes, helping to develop training and communicating changes to library staff.
9. Evaluate trends in circulation services and recommend policy changes as needed.
10. Evaluate technology and electronic resources in the department, making recommendations as needed such as RFID technology to the SJCPL system.
In 1994, stuff like training staff on circulation modules wasn’t really included in descriptions — I’m sure it was done but training was more catch as catch can and “Hey, Trudy, can you spend 20 minutes training the new person before lunch on the catalog?”
Now we write jobs to reflect training duties, “keeping current” duties and define positions as playing a key role in technology planning. How many job descriptions have you all written that seem so DIFFERENT than just a few years ago!