{"id":518,"date":"2014-06-02T09:00:40","date_gmt":"2014-06-02T09:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/aulibrarynews.wordpress.com\/?p=518"},"modified":"2014-06-02T09:00:40","modified_gmt":"2014-06-02T09:00:40","slug":"we-love-our-student-employees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.alfred.edu\/aulibrarynews\/2014\/06\/02\/we-love-our-student-employees\/","title":{"rendered":"We love our student employees!"},"content":{"rendered":"

The end of the academic year is a good time for us\u00a0to reflect on the many benefits of having student employees in the libraries. Graduation is a bittersweet time for us \u2013 we\u2019re excited to see many of our students moving on to the next phase of their lives but we also know that\u00a0their shoes are going to be hard to fill.
\n\"Brian<\/a>The benefits of having student employees in the libraries are many! It\u2019s no exaggeration to say that we\u00a0couldn\u2019t maintain our\u00a0current service levels and open hours without the\u00a0help of student workers. Together, Herrick and Scholes Libraries are open almost\u00a0200 hours per week during the academic year. During any given semester, we employ nearly\u00a0100 students. In addition to staffing our front\u00a0desks, students serve in a variety of other roles in the libraries, from preparing materials for circulation to doing data entry, assisting with projects, shelving, and much more.
\nThe relationship between student workers and the libraries is symbiotic: students gain valuable work experience and we benefit in numerous ways from having them here. After all, most of our patrons are students, and our student employees are their peers. Natalie Skwarek, who supervises students at Herrick\u2019s front desk, notes that, \u201cbecause student workers are students, our patrons, who are also mostly students, feel comfortable approaching them with comments and questions.\u201d Student employees frequently find creative and unconventional solutions to problems, and make suggestions for improving library services.
\nBecause our student employees are here to learn, and not just to work in the libraries, we do our best to provide\u00a0a supportive work environment. This means giving\u00a0constructive feedback, and ensuring that each student has an opportunity to grow. Librarian Brian Sullivan, who coordinates Herrick\u2019s front desk, says, \u201cI believe in empowering student workers to come up with creative solutions to the various situations they encounter at the front desk. This gives them opportunities to build their problem solving and leadership skills while they are here.\u201d\u00a0\"Herrick's<\/a>
\nSteve Crandall, Director of Herrick Library and Dean of Libraries, describes the libraries\u2019 approach to student employment, saying, \u201cWe try to do everything we can to make it a real job, not just a way to collect work-study money. We make sure that the students know how important they are to us. We try to be clear about expectations and provide good training, infusing it with humor to make it memorable.\u201d
\nConnections between the libraries and their student workers often endure beyond\u00a0graduation. \u201cThe relationships we foster with our student workers can prove helpful in securing future employment,\u201d says Dave Snyder, Access Services Coordinator at Herrick. Prospective employers regularly contact library staff for references and Snyder says that, because he works so closely with the students, he can often\u00a0relay a story\u00a0that illustrates a student’s positive character traits and capacity for growth.
\nAs we move towards the start of a new academic year, we look forward to hiring a new group of students who will become part of this ongoing cycle. If you are an incoming student who is interested in working in the libraries, we invite you to stop by to see us\u00a0after you’ve arrived on campus.
\n– Ellen Bahr<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The end of the academic year is a good time for us\u00a0to reflect on the many benefits of having student employees in the libraries. Graduation is a bittersweet time for us \u2013 we\u2019re excited to see many of our students moving on to the next phase of their lives but we also know that\u00a0their shoes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":521,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.alfred.edu\/aulibrarynews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.alfred.edu\/aulibrarynews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.alfred.edu\/aulibrarynews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.alfred.edu\/aulibrarynews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.alfred.edu\/aulibrarynews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=518"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.alfred.edu\/aulibrarynews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.alfred.edu\/aulibrarynews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/521"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.alfred.edu\/aulibrarynews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.alfred.edu\/aulibrarynews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.alfred.edu\/aulibrarynews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}