Pros
Most staff are interested in doing a good job and serving the community Decent benefits Patrons and Friends groups that care
Cons
Chronically understaffed: branch staff is routinely moved around to fill in gaps at other branches sometimes with very little notice; the county uses library staff to fill in gaps in the elections department many times with little to no training or notice Administration continues to push staff to deliver the same level of programming and services which leads to burn out and loss of talent—there’s no consideration for the limitations of understaffing Security is also an issue in some branches and little is done to alleviate those situations. Salaries are low for the area. The Library used to have a reputation for paying the highest salaries among Atlanta metro library systems, but that isn’t the case anymore. Salaries haven’t even kept up with the cost of living. There is no financial support for professional development, as a result most staff don’t attend professional conferences. There’s a lot of disparity among the branches: some branches have Friends of the Library groups that raise money for program supplies and materials, other branches rely on the little bit of money given by the county There’s very little accountability—in the several years I worked there, I never had a formal performance review; bad managers are kept in their positions There’s very little cohesion among branches and some branches weirdly seem to be in competition with each other. Technology in the county is a joke. They still use websites (such as for clocking in or accessing pay stubs) that require Internet Explorer.