The Jackson/Hinds Library System has jobs to fill that range from the executive director of the system to circulation assistants.
“We’re going through the same staffing shortage a good chunk of the country is going through,” said Kimberly Corbett, interim director of the system.
“It’s definitely been slower than normal. Normally, people are interested in the library and interested in working at the library.”
Across the country, many employers find it challenging to hire the workers they need. Some blame it on struggles related to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic while others contend the pandemic opened the eyes of workers and made them consider the kind of work they want to do.
The Jackson/Hinds Library System would typically employ about 75 people but now has 66 employees, as of Jan. 16, Corbett said. A few employees have retired, and some have left for other reasons, she said.
“We occasionally have some people leave because they have something that pays higher,” she said. “We have some wonderful staff members who have been here for years. Generally, I think people stay or go because of the people. We have a really good staff.”
The topic of the number of employees arises from time-to-time during the system’s board of trustee meetings.
The minutes of the Feb. 23, 2021 board of trustee meeting record that the system once had about 100 employees. Mary Garner, vice president of the trustees, asked at that meeting why the system had 100 employees and how it could operate with fewer, according to the minutes.
Brenette Nichols, director of human affairs for the library system, told the trustees that in 2017 the system had 100 employees at the end of the fiscal year and that there were fewer employees because of the COVID-19 pandemic and lower circulation, according to the minutes. Corbett added that additional employees would be required when the system, which at that time was not operating at full capacity due to the coronavirus, was fully open, according to the minutes.
The system’s website lists job openings for branch managers at the Beverly J. Brown Library in Byram and the Evelyn T. Majure Library in Utica. There are also openings for a youth services assistant at the Margaret Walker Alexander Library, the Medgar Evers Library and the Willie Morris Library, each of which is located in Jackson.
Part-time shelvers, employees who shelve books as part of their duties, are needed at the Beverly J. Brown Library in Byram, the Quisenberry Library in Clinton and the Willie Morris Library. Circulation assistant jobs are open at all of the system’s 13 locations in Jackson and Hinds County.
Also waiting to be filled are the jobs of a custodian and a maintenance technician.
The website also lists openings for a branch manager, youth services assistant and part-time shelver at the Richard Wright Library in Jackson, which is closed due to problems with the building.
The pay for the various open positions ranges widely depending upon experience, Corbett said.
The executive director position, which was posted almost a year ago, lists the starting salary as $81,000. The position requires an American Library Association-accredited Master of Library Science plus seven years of progressively responsible professional public library experience.
A shelver or circulation assistant without a college degree would earn minimum wage, which in Mississippi is $7.25 an hour.
Corbett admits positions at some restaurants pay better than some at the library system but she believes the library system offers more.
“We have better benefits,” she said. Benefits for full-time workers include health insurance, state retirement, vision and dental insurance and short-term disability insurance.
Pat Fontaine, executive director of the Mississippi Hospitality and Restaurant Association, said the restaurant industry now pays well above minimum wage as of late, with some fast-food chains offering employees $12 an hour.
