The report looks closely at how six American colleges and universities recruit, choose, train, incentivize, deploy, evaluate and retain their student workers. The colleges profiled are: Rutgers University, the University of Illinois at Urbana, Champaign, the University of North Dakota, Northland College, the University of Northern Michigan, and the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
The report was written by Johanna Boyle, a former newspaper reporter, current New Jersey public librarian, and MLIS graduate of the library science school of the University of Wisconsin, Madison. The study is based on detailed interviews with librarians who lead their institution’s efforts to train and deploy student workers.
Among the many issues discussed are: salaries, salary scales and policies on promotions and salary increases; dismissals and grounds for dismissals; training in customer service & conflict resolution; training regimens and certification of competency in a broad range of tasks; novel uses for student workers; training of student workers for more sophisticated tasks in library reference; training of students to supervise other students; use of graduate students; methods of evaluation and assessment, and much more.
The report is designed to help its readers to benchmark their efforts with those of peer institutions and to learn by example from premier practitioners.