Librarian Relief Fund Application (PDF)
Librarian Relief Fund Application (DOC)

The Vermont Library Association Librarian Relief Fund assists librarians who suffered personal property damages as a result of Hurricane Irene.  Many of our colleagues need support beyond what is offered them by governmental agencies, so please donate generously to their cause.

If you would like to give to the fund, contributions can be mailed to:

Vermont Library Association | Attn: Librarian Relief Fund | P.O. Box 803 | Burlington, VT 05402

You can also donate online at:

Please note that 5% of your online gift goes towards Network for Good’s administrative costs, but you can choose an option of paying for it as well.

The Vermont Library Association (VLA), Green Mountain Library Consortium (GMLC) and Vermont Consortium of Academic Libraries (VCAL) are excited to introduce the Vermont Library Substitute Pool!

Here’s how it works:

If you would like the opportunity to sub or temp at a library in your area, or are seeking freelance work or volunteer opportunities, simply fill out the Vermont Library Substitute Pool Form at http://www.vermontlibraries.org/vlspform .This form populates a document, maintained by a joint VLA/VCAL/GMLC volunteer, with your interests and contact information. Your entry will be available for one year to libraries looking to fill a need.

We particularly encourage current library staff and volunteers interested in exploring work in other kinds of libraries to sign up for the sub pool. For example, if you are a school librarian interested in finding out what it might be like working with children or teens in a public library setting, the substitute pool could be an excellent opportunity for you.

We anticipate that there will be a mix of paid and unpaid opportunities available.

Libraries looking for a volunteer, project temp, or other such staffing need, will be able to request a single log in to access the data. To do so, please contact our Vermont Library Substitute Pool volunteer, Helen Linda, at celestihel[at]gmail.com with the name and email address of your library representative.

The VLA has also provided a space to list ongoing Volunteer Opportunities at libraries, http://www.vermontlibraries.org/section/volunteers.  If you are a library who has opportunities available, please consider posting them on the site. Please contact the Vermont Library Association (http://www.vermontlibraries.org/leadership )  if you are interested in adding an ongoing volunteer opportunity.

We currently have 68 people on the list and they represent every county in the state (most of them selecting multiple counties). We also currently have 28 potential employers viewing the list. Below is the breakdown of current availability:

1. Chittenden: 39
2. Washington: 29
3. Orange: 25
4. Windsor: 24
5. Franklin: 23
6. Addison: 20
7. Windham: 18
8. Caledonia: 18
9. Lamoille: 16
10. Rutland: 13
11. Bennington: 12
12. Essex: 11
13. Orleans: 7

Marti Fiske
President, Vermont Library Association
Director, Dorothy Alling Memorial Library
21 Library Lane
Williston, VT 05495
www.williston.lib.vt.us
802-878-4918
marti@williston.lib.vt.us

Students taking LSC 595 (Professional Field Experience) must complete forty-five hours of work for each credit. Students may take the course for anywhere from one to six credits. Details regarding the course may be seen at http://www.uri.edu/artsci/lsc/Academics/Courses/PFE.html. Instructions for viewing the PFE database are also given on this page.

A PFE may be primarily service oriented. For example, the student might work on the Reference Desk and teach information literacy courses in an academic library or the student could catalog new entries in the digital collection of archival institution. The PFE could also be project oriented, where a student could develop a new website or redesign an existing website for a public library or work on a research project for a corporate library. The PFE may also involve a combination of service and projects. The details of each PFE are worked out cooperatively between the student, the supervising library, and the full-time faculty member teaching the course.

If you would like to be listed in the PFE database, please complete the Site Supervisor’s Form at http://www.uri.edu/artsci/lsc/Academics/Courses/PFE/SiteSupervisorForm.pdf and send it to GSLIS as indicated on the form. The full-time faculty member teaching LSC 595 will be happy to work with you and the student to try to find a good match for the PFE.

* Qualified library directors should be paid at least $40,300 annually, or $19.38 per hour, as recommended by the Vermont Library Association Executive Board.
* If the library does not pay for medical insurance, offer compensatory leave or a lump sum payment instead.
* At a minimum, increase staff wages by the Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) as set by the Social Security Administration annually in October. There will be no increase to social security payments in 2010. However, now is a good time to “catch up” if you have missed COLA in previous years.
* Consider whether your library has experienced increased usage this year. More visits, more items borrowed, more usage of resources, more programs — all mean more work for the staff. Even if job descriptions haven’t expanded, the workload may have.

Check the attached budget memo for more details. Share the information with library trustees as you build the annual budget. To study appropriate compensation, view the Personnel Committee’s 2009 revision of “Increasing Public Library Compensation: A How-To Guide for Vermont Libraries” at http://www.vermontlibraries.org/publibcompensation2009.pdf

For further information about or assistance with the above or any other personnel questions, please contact the committee chair:

Rubi Simon
Burnham Memorial Library
898 Main Street (Rte. 2A)
Colchester, VT 05446
802-879-7576
rsimon@burnham.lib.vt.us

VERMONT LIBRARY ASSOCIATION
PERSONNEL COMMITTEE

Budget time often brings up questions about Vermont library salaries. Want some help deciding what a fair raise is for your employees? Think about some of these pointers from the Vermont Library Association’s Personnel Committee:

• At a minimum, COLA, or Cost of Living Adjustment, should be considered annually. The Social Security Administration announces COLA for the upcoming October; for 2010, there will be no COLA. However, if staff have missed COLA increases for several years, now is the time to catch up. COLA increases are available at www.socialsecurity.gov/OACT/COLA/colaseries.html.
• Continuing education is an ongoing factor for librarians who need to stay on top of new online tools, trends in the country, and in the profession. If your librarian has recently completed the Certification of Public Librarians, recognize this important benchmark with a significant raise. Check with your school superintendent to see what percentage the schools use for a step raise as teachers add credits to their starting credentials. If your town has created a step chart for its employees, you may use that for the raise.
• Changes in job description occur incrementally. Bit by bit, the staff may increase the number of library programs, the number of volunteers supervised, the number of services for the community, or grants written. Even if job descriptions have not changed, your library may have experienced a marked increase in usage – which means an increase in staff workload. Annually, trustees should scrutinize changes in the scope and responsibility of the job to see if an additional raise is warranted.
• The Vermont Library Association Executive Board recommended a minimum starting salary of $40,300 for full-time public library directors in September 2009. The remuneration should include a full benefits package including medical insurance, vacation and sick leave, and a retirement plan. The pro-rated hourly wage for this salary is $19.38, the figure you should use for part-time directors.
• A fair benefits package should be considered part of staff compensation. If the library does not offer full benefits to its staff, trustees may include a line item in the budget to offer payment in lieu of benefits. Naming the benefit line allows trustees to move towards appropriate benefits for medical insurance, vacation and sick leave, and a retirement plan.
• Bonuses reward staff for exceptional performance. Bonuses are appropriate when staff have risen to meet major challenges. Finding new money to replace an unexpected shortfall, continuing to deliver excellent service while writing and administering a grant, or completing a long-range plan might be occasions for a one-time bonus.
• Make sure that library staff is paid for all hours worked—or paid for enough hours to get the work done. By law, staff should not volunteer for the job they are paid to do.
• Use the strategies outlined in “Increasing Public Library Compensation: A How-To Guide to Vermont Libraries,” revised in 2009. This publication is available at www.vermontlibraries.org/publibcompensation2009.pdf, and includes easy-to-fill-in worksheets.
• Trustees may decide they need more time to understand the whole question of staff salaries. The Personnel Committee of the Vermont Library Association will be happy to help you review and study your library salaries and job descriptions. Contact committee chair Amy C. Grasmick at kimball_acg@hotmail.com or (802) 728-5073 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              (802) 728-5073      end_of_the_skype_highlighting for more information.

MentorConnect (”MC”) allows ALA members to create mentoring profiles that highlight their expertise and experience. After they’ve joined MC, ALA members can search for a mentor using a variety of criteria (gender, type of library, ethnicity, etc.) and request mentorship. Once created, the mentorship is tracked within MC, with a space for providing and archiving feedback. The system will prompt mentors and mentorees every few months to ensure they are staying in touch.

To learn all about this new service, see Mentoring Starter Questions and Mentoring and MentorConnect FAQ at (http://www.students.ala.org/studentmemberblog/?p=344)

Don Wood
Program Officer
Chapter Relations Office
American Libraries Association
dwood@ala.org
1-800-545-2433, ext. 2429

1) 2009 Best Small Library in America Nomination postmark deadline is Nov. 3; http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA606273.html

2) 2009 Movers & Shakers Nomination submission deadline is Nov. 10; http://www.libraryjournal.com/movers2009

3) 2009 Librarian of the Year Nomination deadline has been extended to Nov. 17; http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA606276.html

The first award is only for public libraries (those serving populations of 25,000 or less). But the librarians in Movers & Shakers and Librarian of the Year are professionals working in any libraries, school, college, academic, or special.

Amy Howlett
VT Department of Libraries

* Qualified library directors should be making at least $40,300 annually, or $19.38 per hour, as recommended by the Vermont Library Association Executive Board.
* If the library does not pay for medical insurance, offer compensatory leave or a lump sum payment instead.
* At a minimum, increase staff wages by the Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) as set by the Social Security Administration annually in October. The increase for 2009 is 5.8%.

Check the budget memo below for more details. Share the information with library trustees as you build the annual budget.

To study appropriate compensation, view the Personnel Committee’s 2006 revision of “Increasing Public Library Compensation: A How-To Guide for Vermont Libraries” at http://www.vermontlibraries.org/compensation5.07.pdf

For further information about or assistance with the above or any other personnel questions, please contact the committee chair:

Amy C. Grasmick
Kimball Public Library
67 North Main Street
Randolph, VT 05060
802-728-5073
kimball_acg@hotmail.com

—————————–

VERMONT LIBRARY ASSOCIATION
PERSONNEL COMMITTEE

Budget time often brings up questions about Vermont library salaries. Want some help deciding what a fair raise is for your employees? Think about some of these pointers from the Vermont Library Association’s Personnel Committee:

 At a minimum, COLA, or Cost of Living Adjustment, should be considered annually. Check Social Security Administration calculations at http://www.ssa.gov/. COLA for the upcoming year is announced in October; for 2009, the increase is 5.8%. If staff have missed COLA increases for several years, the raise should be higher.

 Continuing education is an ongoing factor for librarians who need to stay on top of new online tools, trends in the country, and in the profession. If your librarian has recently completed the Certification of Public Librarians, recognize this important benchmark with a significant raise. Check with your school superintendent to see what percentage the schools use for a step raise as teachers add credits to their starting credentials. If your town has created a step chart for its employees, you may use that for the raise.

 Changes in job description occur incrementally. Bit by bit, the staff may increase the number of library programs, the number of volunteers supervised, the number of services for the community, or grants written. Annually, trustees should scrutinize changes in the scope and responsibility of the job to see if an additional raise is warranted.

 The Vermont Library Association Executive Board recommended a minimum starting salary of $40,300 for full-time public library directors in October 2008. The remuneration should include a full benefits package including medical insurance, vacation and sick leave, and a retirement plan. The pro-rated hourly wage for this salary is $19.38, the figure you should use for part-time directors.

 A fair benefits package should be considered part of staff compensation. If the library does not offer full benefits to its staff, trustees may include a line item in the budget to offer payment in lieu of benefits. Naming the benefit line allows trustees to move towards appropriate benefits for medical insurance, vacation and sick leave, and a retirement plan.

 Bonuses reward staff for exceptional performance. Bonuses are appropriate when staff have risen to meet major challenges. Finding new money to replace an unexpected shortfall, continuing to deliver excellent service while writing and administering a grant, or completing a long-range plan might be occasions for a one-time bonus.

 Make sure that library staff is paid for all hours worked—or paid for enough hours to get the work done. By law, staff should not volunteer for the job they are paid to do.

 Use the strategies outlined in “Increasing Public Library Compensation: A How-To Guide to Vermont Libraries,” revised in 2006. This publication is available at http://www.vermontlibraries.org, and includes easy-to-fill-in worksheets.

 Trustees may decide they need more time to understand the whole problem of staff salaries. The Personnel Committee of the Vermont Library Association will be happy to help you review and study your library salaries and job descriptions. Contact committee chair Amy C. Grasmick at kimball_acg@hotmail.com or (802) 728-5073 for more information.

For a public library director with the Vermont Department of Libraries “Certificate of Public Librarianship,” the recommended minimum starting salary is $40,300, with a complete benefits package. For directors who work less than full time, the hourly wage is $19.38, with a pro-rated benefits package.

“Increasing Public Library Compensation: A How-To Guide for Vermont Libraries” is available at http://www.vermontlibraries.org/compensation5.07.pdf.

The Personnel Committee of the Vermont Library Association can help you review and study your library salaries and job descriptions. Contact committee chair Amy C. Grasmick at kimball_acg@hotmail.com or (802) 728-5073 for more information.