Wojsznis, Part 5
Figure 4 and Table 3 illustrate the percentage index for specific groups within the library service in the overall number of staff employed in the Main Library of Szczecin University of Technology since 1955
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Figure 4: Development of the Main Library of Szczecin University of Technology library staff.
Source: Author’s own research.
The proportion of highly qualified staff with extensive experience as librarians (senior certified custodians, senior custodians, certified custodians and custodians) has been growing steadily. At the very beginning, in 1955, it was mere 10 percent and it remained at the steady level of 13 percent until the end of the 1970s. After 1985, when the Faculty Library of the Department of Economics Engineering and Transport was separated, the number of custodians constituted 25 percent of the total number of library’s workers. Since then it has been growing steadily to reach its highest level of over 37 percent in 2005. This growth is the result of employing new staff who hold university degrees in library science, extensive work experience and the elevation of qualifications for the staff already employed.
Table 3: Percentage index for specific groups of staff in the Main Library of Szczecin University of Technology. | ||||||
| Year | 1955 | 1965 | 1975 | 1985 | 1995 | 2005 |
| Posts | ||||||
| custodians (incl. certified custodians) | 10 | 13.5 | 13.2 | 25 | 30.9 | 37.5 |
| librarians | 70 | 70.3 | 63.9 | 52.1 | 40 | 48.4 |
| admin. and tech. staff | 20 | 16.2 | 22.9 | 22.9 | 29.1 | 14.1 |
How the library functions and how well it meets the demands of its users also depends on the librarians’ ability to implement their knowledge, their perceptive skills, pro–social attitude and communication skills. Books, journals, audio cassettes, video cassettes, floppy disks or CD–ROMS are but a few means of communication available at libraries’ disposal. Libraries use ...różnymi językami, odmiennymi systemami semiotycznymi (various languages, different semiotic systems). [10] Their use requires appropriate skills and qualifications, knowledge of present–day sources, and the ability to decode them. Now communication is the main part of a librarian’s job. [11]
It is generally believed that a library is a go–between in the communication process which takes place between an author (e.g., of a book or article) and a reader (library user). It happens when, while performing their services, librarians provide readers text in its various manifestations. I think that Dr. Małgorzata Kisilowska is right in saying that a present–day library cannot be perceived only as as a mediator making other people’s communications available to the public. [12] The work of librarians is creative too, e.g., while preparing thematic sets or compiling database librarians use their own knowledge and skills to do jobs; they are the authors of various final products. In this case a library becomes information transmitter.
There are various methods of verbal (conversation, debate) and non–verbal (written or visual) communication. The form and content of communication depend on language competence and factual knowledge of the speaker and listener, their knowledge, qualifications, way of thinking and technical capabilities of those who create the message. All this influences how well the needs of library users are met.
The image of a library is created by its employees, by how effective they are and how they are perceived by the users and the community in which the library functions. The future of librarians is very much in their own hands. The ever–changing environment and the users’ expectations must determine them to constant development. Only in this way can they overcome all sorts of obstacles which are the result of changing circumstances.
Irrespective of where the librarian’s actual workplace is, whether it is the library building visited by readers or his/her own home where the librarian sits in front a computer screen, he/she is going to be an information specialist, knowledge organizer, infobroker, or information manager. Few jobs require employees to be as versatile and ready to educate themselves permanently as librarians today. In order to meet the users’ expectations librarians must first find out about them and understand them, must know the existing sources of information and how to access them, must know how to decode them and pass them on the users in the forms required. The profession will be dominated by scientific information and information techology, which seem to be what future holds in store. The name of the profession itself, its character, its professional status may also change, the way it does in the western world. The profession will enter another stage of its development. But whether there will be a place for librarians depends entirely on us.