I’ve been the manager of the Friends of the Aurora Public Library Book Outlet for about four months now and a lot of change has occurred both in the organization and in the store itself as a result. Not everyone is happy about the changes and the issues are starting to come to a head in some cases. Not everything has been easy to deal with but I’m getting the job done as I see it. What this leads me to is the recent SirsiDynix Institute titled Workplace Culture: Building Positive and Productive Staff Relations. This one hour presentation covers many of the skills that a manager needs to make sure that everyone in an organization gets along and the job gets done. Much of what’s presented is common sense, but a refresher in this type of material, for managers at all levels of experience, never hurts.
Michael Sauers is the Director of Logan Library in Logan, UT. Prior to this he was one of the founding staff and Technology Manager for Do Space in Omaha, NE. After earning his MLS in 1995 from the University at Albany's School of Information Science and Policy Michael spent his first 20 years as a librarian training other librarians in technology along with time as a public library trustee, a bookstore manager for a library friends group, a reference librarian, a technology consultant, and a bookseller. He has written dozens of articles for various journals and magazines and has published 14 books ranging from library technology, blogging, Web design, and an index to a popular horror magazine. In his spare time, he blogs at TravelinLibrarian.info, runs The Collector's Guide to Dean Koontz website at CollectingKoontz.com, takes many, many photos, and typically reads more than 100 books a year.
Unless otherwise stated, all opinions are my own and are not to be considered those of the City of Logan, UT.
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One Reply to “Building Positive and Productive Staff Relations”
As a frequent customer of the Friends of the Aurora Public Library I have hated the changes you have made. I only buy the 40 cent books and now that they are mixed in with the regular books it will take me hours to go through the shelfs. I have now cut my visitations to the store from 3 times a week to twice a month because of this and the other changes you have made.
As a frequent customer of the Friends of the Aurora Public Library I have hated the changes you have made. I only buy the 40 cent books and now that they are mixed in with the regular books it will take me hours to go through the shelfs. I have now cut my visitations to the store from 3 times a week to twice a month because of this and the other changes you have made.