A closer look into a social career
Victoria Seiketso Sethibe | Thursday March 16, 2017 15:57
They are often required to use their interpersonal skills to accomplish their work goals like Lorato,* a compassionate school librarian. Her interactive work involves:
Creating a conducive learning environment in the library
Lorato is a firm yet friendly person who makes the library a pleasant place to visit. Almost all her clients or in library terms, her patrons, enjoy visiting the library. She also patiently teaches her patrons how to use the library and leaves them feeling confident to find information relevant for their studies. Library skills add high value to good education.
Lorato also always ensures that she orientates new patrons about the multiple services such as provision of audio visual material, games and lending of books and other learning materials. Her close interaction with her patrons helps Lorato to stay updated about the books they need and enjoy reading.
One of Lorato’s initiatives includes promotion of reading for pleasure among her patrons by collaborating with teaching staff to organise some book review sessions for her patrons, in manageable groups. This is a typical example of an initiative that can encourage patrons to continue using libraries even after they have relocated to other places. Once patrons are empowered with effective library skills, they too can contribute to information dissemination by teaching their families and friends how to use the library beneficially.
Other approaches Lorato uses to help her patrons connect more with the library include;
Running the library book tour
This further requires Lorato to interact with her patrons by teaching them to identify the books using clues such as the book title, author, year of publication and whether the book is fiction or non-fiction. The return date label is also one of the things she encourages patrons to pay attention to.
One of the other key things Lorato and others in a similar profession are required to do is to explain to library users that books are fragile and that they need to be preserved by using book marks instead of folding textbook pages as well as using clear plastic to cover and keep them clean.
Making the library look attractive
Some of the ways Lorato and her support team make the library look attractive include putting up colourful displays such as posters with updated information on modern day careers, making comfortable places for library users to seat and read for pleasure, not necessarily for study, and even putting up some nice fresh flowers on the librarian’s desk.
Holding stimulating library activities regularly
Lorato also started a library club whereby she trains regular library users to be assistant librarians and delegates them to help her to prepare, return books to their rightful shelves and cover them appropriately. She always monitors the work done by her voluntary assistants. This can be beneficial to those who seek to follow a career path like hers, those who plan on working with the general public and even those who just love the library and want to gain more knowledge on it. It also helps teach others about organisation.
Organising book exhibitions
(if funds permit)
She usually works with her support team to invite book suppliers over to exhibit books just outside the library for patrons to choose their books of interest in order to help her make relevant book purchases. This always her to fully engage with library-goers in order to see clearly what kind of books interest them, which ones they seek out the most and also if they are willing to try new suggestions.
Creating a cultural corner
Lorato has kept a table free for her patrons to put some locally produced objects and souvenirs from other places such as sea shells and pictures on display to raise other library users’ interest in the world outside their academic institutions. On display, she also loves to put a world map as well as books that cover or are based in the countries showcased.
There is a whole variety of social careers such as teaching, childcare provider and social work. It is clear from Lorato’s day at work that social careers require people who are interactive, tolerant and emotionally stable.
These kind of people are usually very outgoing and sometimes are referred to as a “people person”. Lack of emotional stability means the service provider can easily rub off that negative energy onto those they interact with and make their services unattractive to patrons.