Monday 3/30/09. 3.5 hours. Mary Jane and I finalized the last two policies for the personnel manual: Sick Leave and Hiring and Staffing. I suggested a few changes to the Sick Leave policy that Mary Jane put to paper after last week’s lengthy discussions. Hiring and Staffing was a rewrite and combination of three existing policies: Position Descriptions, Transfers, and Hiring and Vacancies.
Mary Jane expanded on information she’d given me in five areas:
- The process of creating an annual budget.
- The nature of the relationship between the fiscal officer and the director. They are both appointed by the board of trustees so there’s no reporting responsibility one to the other.
- Factors considered when hiring an assistant director. Mary Jane says she hired her assistant director with expertise in areas that were not her strengths.
- Relationships between the director and government entities. She reinforced the importance of building relationships with all levels of local government, school district superintendents, the county MRDD, and other libraries in the region.
- Property management and insurance. We talked about contracts for services, using locally owned services as much as possible, and different kinds of insurance that are necessary. I had never considered, for example, the the director and the board who require insurance to protect their personal assets in the event they were sued for library-related reasons.
It’s been a pleasure to shadow Mary Jane and learn about directing a small library system – especially the system that serves my home community. The staff of DCDL were all so open to sharing their knowledge and experience with me. I recommend DCDL to other students looking for a practicum site; they will be warmly welcomed.
