HIRING AND TRAINING GRADUATE ASSISTANTS FOR THE ACADEMIC LIBRARY
Erin O’Toole
The research and instructional services department of the University of North Texas Libraries employs eleven graduate assistants (GAs) to provide face-to-face and virtual reference services. Two subject librarians have developed procedures and practices that simultaneously streamline management and motivate the GAs to provide consistently professional reference service. Try these tips for hiring and training to improve your GA program.
HIRING
When you are considering graduate students for employment, their employment histories, education record, and personalities are more important than their fields of study. Students with the following qualifications make the best employees:
Design your interview with open-ended questions, giving applicants the opportunity to tell you their experiences. Remove jargon from interview questions and add examples of the information you seek, such as these:
Many students do not read the job description carefully because they get excited at the prospect of making money. You can eliminate ill-matched applicants and reduce misunderstandings with GAs by explaining the graduate assistantship requirements and department’s expectations at the interview. Carefully review a handout of the employment conditions with the applicant. Besides salary, these are the most important facts to cover:
Encourage applicants to take the handout home, review it, and contact you with any questions. After completing a set of interviews, wait at least two days before offering a position to allow the applicants time to consider whether the job suits them.
ORIENTATION
Orientation is the time to start motivating GAs to provide excellent reference service by giving them the overall picture of your library system, explaining their vital place in it, and making them feel welcome. Spend about twenty training hours off-desk and include the following activities to promote inclusion:
Spend the remaining time discussing library policies, procedures, and resources. A wiki on the library’s intranet is a convenient place to store this information because it can be updated quickly when policies and resources change and accessed easily by anyone in the organization. Create sample patron questions that require GAs to locate the following policies and procedures on the library website:
New GAs can do resource training independently with tutorials, sample questions, and answer keys that you have stored in a wiki. Be sure to follow up with GAs after the completion of each worksheet and check for comprehension. Academic libraries have more resources than GAs can learn during orientation, so prepare training materials for representative resources:
One of the most difficult resources for GAs to master is the online catalog. Most are not prepared for the intricacies of cataloging. Some features that confuse them are unusual status codes, multiple entries for different formats, and Continuing and Continued By records for periodicals that have changed titles.
ONGOING TRAINING
After orientation, continue training GAs at weekly meetings of one to two hours during the academic year to keep them current on news about university, library, and resource changes. Bring in different presenters from your library and incorporate active learning to keep them interested in the following activities:
Communication is daily training. GAs need information every day in order to offer outstanding service. Use several modes of communication for different functions: e-mail, wikis, and instant messaging.
Train GAs to check their e-mail on a daily basis, even if they are not scheduled to work. E-mail is the best mode for handling individual issues, such as scheduling conflicts, vacation days, or anything else that requires a personal response. It is also appropriate for sending out deadlines or projects to the entire team.
A wiki is an appropriate tool for pushing information out to GAs and librarians working reference shifts. It is faster for staff to open a wiki page at the shift’s start and find reference information there than to sift through individual e-mail for answers. Additionally, all reference staff can add information to these suggested wiki pages:
Use instant messaging to maintain an open line of communication with GAs who are working reference shifts. GAs can contact librarians about difficult reference questions, desk coverage, problem patrons, and other time-sensitive matters.
You can have a team of enthusiastic, high-performing GAs at your library by following the tips described in this chapter for hiring and training. They will be motivated and loyal because you included them in the library organization, prepared them to do professional reference work, and supported them with multiple modes of communication. The GAs will develop into first-rate future librarians, possibly for your own library.