ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries C&RL News ■ July/August 2000 / 609 College & Research Libraries news How to cover those summer reference hours A novel approach to the nine-month contract at an academic library by Scott Lanning A t Southern Utah University (SUU), nine- month contracts and faculty status are the standard for librarians. This is consid one of the best benefits of the job, but it leaves the library without summer coverage of the reference desk. Every year, faculty members must be recruited to work in the summer. To get employees to give up some portion of their vacation, additional salary—known as overload—is paid. This has been the prac­ tice for many years. The lure of additional money is attractive to many faculty, but no one wants to give up his or her entire vacation. This situation re­ quires that a large percentage of the faculty be employed for short periods of time in a variety of schedules to ensure full reference desk coverage, even though the reference desk is staffed only five hours a day on sum­ mer weekdays versus eleven hours a day during fall and spring. Summer scheduling and contract writing is a great deal of work, with no guarantee of reaching the necessary coverage. In addition, a substantial amount of money must be in­ cluded in the operating budget to cover over­ load. The system worked for SUU, but we wanted something better. Our solution was to shift the schedules of two faculty members. Their schedules now include the summer months, with one fac­ ere ulty member getting the equivalent amount of time off in the spring and the other getting d time off in the fall. This gives the library the reference desk coverage it needs for the summer, with one morning shift of two hours and one after­ noon shift of three hours. R e cru itin g to th e n ew sch ed u le While the intrinsic value of the schedule holds appeal to some faculty, it does not appeal to others. Faculty with children in school are not as likely to be interested in this sched­ ule, as they prefer to have the summers off with their children. Faculty with spouses who are also faculty are not likely to be interested because they will not have the same time off. However, the lure of time off in the spring or fall is very attractive to faculty who do not have these obligations. A d v a n ta g e s o f th e n ew sch ed u le The most obvious advantage of the shifted schedules is coverage of the reference desk during the summer and the end of the an­ nual recruiting and scheduling headache. That onerous task has been eliminated. Another advantage is that more money for overloads is freed by these schedules. Previ­ ously, a large percentage of our overload went towards summer coverage, with the rest go- About the author Scott Lanning is public services librarian a t Southern Utah University in Cedar City, e-mail: lanning@suu.edu mailto:lanning@suu.edu 6 10 / C&RL News ■ July/August 2000 ing toward special projects. At som e institu­ tions, the salary savings could b e used for other purposes, such as pay raises. A less obvious advantage is morale. These new schedules are certainly a boost for those w ho got them, but there is also much less pressure on the other faculty to work during the summer months. Disadvantages of the new schedule Coverage is the biggest disadvantage. If your spring and fall coverage would suffer or if the loads on remaining faculty would be too heavy, th en this sch ed u le can n o t b e at­ tempted. By staggering the new schedules, w e are only down on e person in fall and spring. Faculty will b e working more refer­ en ce desk hours during those semesters, al­ though this increase is relatively small com ­ pared to the increase in reference desk hours the summer em ployees will work. O n an annual basis, they will be working many more reference hours than their traditionally sched­ uled colleagues. However, these hours tradi­ tionally receive few er questions than fall and spring reference hours. Another disadvantage is missing commit­ tee meetings and having few er opportunities to interact with colleagues. Membership on campus and statewide committees is expected o f faculty, and a good solution to this situa­ tion has not been worked out, but commit­ tee sharing may b e a possibility for some committees. For those faculty on the traditional sched­ ule, there may be a perception o f fewer over­ load opportunities (thus less salary), due to the lack o f need for summer reference desk coverage. In the past, a faculty member could combine a special project with reference work. Since reference coverage was always needed, this approach to summer projects was typical. Now, with coverage no longer the issue, the project is paramount. This shift may move more o f the overload to departments that are project- oriented, like cataloging. Conclusion O verall, w e b elieve this program will be beneficial to our library. It gives us con sis­ tent coverage at the reference desk for all future summers. Originally, only on e posi­ tion was going to have the shifted schedule, but a second em ployee lobbied the admin­ istration on the benefits o f two em ployees. O ne faculty m em ber could not work all o f the hours on the reference desk, so recruit­ ing as in past years would have had to con ­ tinue, but two faculty members could handle all o f the hours. Perfect tim ing The timing o f our decision seem s fortuitous. With our schedules and contracts in place for the upcoming year, w e learned that the university is changing the way overload is distributed. Departments will no longer have their own pool o f money. Instead, the university will pool all the overload, and each faculty mem­ ber in each department will have to com pete for that money. This would have b een disas­ trous for the library, but by changing our schedules now to ensure necessary cover­ age o f the reference desk in the summer, we headed off being forced into making essen­ tially the same changes next year. While the outcome o f a forced change may have been the same, it would not have been as happy as our voluntary program. ■ Orchids to C&RL N editorhLetter to teews for publishing Scott R. DiMarco’s piece “I know that’s what it said, but it’s not what we want” (June 2000), and orchids to Scott for m en­ tioning my particular pet peeve as tip #1. A perfectly appalling percentage o f ads in our profession don’t give any hint about the salary range proposed. It’s very frus­ trating for job-hunters, and it probably pre­ vents som e good matches from finding each other without waste o f time. Onions to the copy editor who passed “Awareness o f current academic trends that effect library operations” (p. 504). That should be “affect.” “Effect” for completive, “affect” for incremental. Usages are slip­ ping all around us, but let’s hold the line on that one for a bit longer, if w e can. Great piece, though. I hope HR offic­ e r s re a d it, and m e n d t h e ir w a y s. — C h risto p h erH . Walker, I n d i a n a Univer­ sity, e -m a il: c h w a lk .er@ in d ia n a .e d u mailto:chwalk.er@indiana.edu