C&RL News September 2020 394

March 2020 became a pivoting moment for higher education in the United
States, when the COVID-19 pandemic forced
colleges and universities to switch to remote
delivery of instruction within weeks. The
impact of this event is deep and far-reaching.
There is already a deluge of articles about
how most faculty and students have had to
adjust to a new way of teaching and learning-
-or how administrators have had to brace
for financial losses. However, little has been
written about the situations librarians and
library staff are facing.

When Pennsylvania State University an-
nounced that all nonessential employees,
which included librarians and library staff,
had to work remotely, it created a strange
scenario. Some librarians and staff, especially
those who normally operate in the digital
realm, were overwhelmed with work. On
the other hand, there were employees whose
job responsibilities were directly tied to the
physical buildings, such as those who deal
with physical collections, who literally could
not do their work from home. Additionally,
there was a pause in hiring, which caused
some units to have staffing shortages or more
work than they could handle.

At the very beginning, in order to follow
human resources guidelines, supervisors
worked with those who could not do their
work from home and assigned them pro-
fessional development or training, such as
watching webinars or videos from LinkedIn
Training, while at home. However, as the
pandemic wore on, it became clear that this

was not a viable long-term strategy. Although
our university seems to be in a relatively
fortunate financial situation, there are still
understandable concerns about layoffs and
furloughs among employees who may not
be able to do their usual jobs from home. To
help ease the anxiety, we, as administrators,
wanted to make sure that library employees
who wanted to work were able to do so,
regardless of their normal job responsibilities.
Therefore, we developed a classified ads style
“job bank” that allows individuals, units, or
departments to post “jobs” or projects that do
not require steep learning curves for others
to pick up. So far, the project has been well
received. We have also discovered some ad-
ditional benefits of the initiative, which could
positively impact our future organizational
work distribution.

Development and implementation of
the project
We put out a call to libraries’ faculty and
staff for those interested in helping shape
what an internal job bank might look like
and how it might be implemented. Receiv-
ing a great response, we held two brain-

Leo S. Lo, Binky Lush, and Dace Freivaids

Redistributing work during
COVID-19
Penn State University Libraries’ job bank

Leo S. Lo is associate dean for learning, undergraduate
services, and commonwealth campus libraries, email:
lsl5158@psu.edu, Binky Lush is manager of discovery,
access, and web services, email: ful105@psu.edu, and
Dace Freivaids is interim associate dean for strategic
technologies, email: dif1@psu.edu, at Penn State
University Libraries

mailto:lsl5158%40psu.edu?subject=
mailto:ful105%40psu.edu?subject=
mailto:dif1%40psu.edu?subject=

September 2020 395 C&RL News

storming sessions with our volunteers to
talk through all of the implications of a job
bank system.

Our first step was to define the goal
of the job bank, which was effectively
to match up employees who have capac-
ity to take on additional tasks while we
are all working remotely with work that
needs to be done. Our subsequent discus-
sions raised some important questions we
needed to consider:

• Employees looking for work have
a varied degree of technical savviness.
Would the jobs entail some sort of training?

• Could the projects be ongoing, or is
there a definitive timeline? This was diffi-
cult to determine as the libraries reopen-
ing and bringing employees back on site
remains an unknown.

• Would the job bank be for both
full- and part-time employees? And if we
included part- time employees, how many
hours would they be allowed to work?

• Does the project supervisor take the
first person who applies for the job or wait
for the most qualified?

• What is the approval path for job
bank applicants? We determined that the
employee’s immediate supervisor had to be
aware of and supportive of an employee’s
application and would be part of the initial
conversation with the project supervisor.

Once we talked through some of the
issues and concerns, we came up with
a very straightforward workflow. Units/
departments that have projects for which
they need additional help would submit
information about projects. These projects
could be big or small, with varying degrees
of complexity and skill needed and for
which the resources or time to complete
them has not been available. This infor-
mation would become job bank postings
and would appear on the staff site, where
the libraries’ employees could review and
apply for projects/work for which their
skillsets, timeline, and availability lined

up. The project supervisor would review
the submissions and contact the successful
applicant and their supervisor, and then
work could begin. Job postings would be
removed once they were filled.

Because we had an immediate timeline
for getting the job bank up and running,
we wanted to use a system that was already
in place. The job postings were internal,
so the libraries’ Intranet was the logical
platform. We use Drupal to power our
staff site and have a blog functionality
that we call “Staff Posts.” These are posts
that every employee has permissions to
create in categories, such as upcoming
events, updates, training opportunities, or
travel reports. We added a new category
of postings called Job Bank. All job bank
postings were tagged with this category,
enabling employees to click on the Job
Bank category tag to see a listing of all
job bank postings. So that our employees
would be notified in multiple online set-
tings, every job bank posting appeared on
the staff site homepage, on the full list of
postings, and appeared as a notification on
our libraries’ Slack channel and Microsoft
Teams channel.

To ensure that all postings contained
consistent and required information, we
asked project supervisors to complete a job
posting form that requested the following:

• project/task name,
• department/library,
• description of work,
• skills needed,
• possible shared position?
• training needed?
• project/task timeline,
• estimated number of hours per week, and
• name/email of project supervisor.

Upon receipt of the form submission,
our Web content editor added the posts
in the name of the project supervisor and
tagged them with the Job Bank category.

For employee applicants, we created
another form with the following fields:

C&RL News September 2020 396

• I am submitting an application for
(drop down of available jobs),

• name/email of applicant,
• status (full-time/part-time),
• description of skills matching project/

task,
• additional information,
• your supervisor’s name/e-mail, and
• my supervisor is aware of my applica-

tion (y/n).

Applicants could submit separate ap-
plications for as many projects as they
liked. Once a project had been posted, had
received applicants and an employee had
been “hired”, the project supervisor would
contact the web team and we removed the
position from the application form.

Participant feedback
To assess the job bank efforts, we de-
veloped a form to be sent to manag-
ers and employees upon completion of
a project. In addition to the number of
hours worked, it asks for feedback and
commentary on the entire job bank pro-
cess. To date, all but one of the projects
are ongoing, but feedback has been very
positive.

Supervisors who posted projects or
tasks were grateful for the opportunity to
help co-workers during this difficult time,
considered it to be an ideal opportunity
to have our own employees complete the
work rather than hiring part-time workers,
and enabled completion of projects that
required focused attention over a period
of time. One supervisor commented that
she was happy that her center “could help
supplement work to keep employees pro-
ductive during stay-at-home. Also, having
employees throughout the Commonwealth
assist with collection work is very excit-
ing.” A job applicant noted that she applied
because it was a way to help out and she
“was happy to see such a thing as the job
bank because it allowed me to participate
in additional work that I normally wouldn’t
get to do in my position in the library.”

When asked to reflect on what they
gained from the program, supervisors
noted that they benefited from more than
the completion of the projects/tasks. One
supervisor commented that “in addition
to well-transcribed documents, I gained
camaraderie and new insights,” while an-
other noted that in addition to interacting
with employees that she did not previously
know, she appreciated having “someone
from outside our department work on
these tasks with a fresh set of eyes, new
perspective, and creative approach that we
might not have otherwise taken.” Another
manager commented that not only was he
able to propose a project (Ask a Librarian
FAQ database enhancement) that would
benefit both library patrons and employees,
but he was also able to “match one of my
employees to a project at another library
location/department that was well suited to
their interests and skills.”

Similarly, applicants hired for the job
bank projects enjoyed working on tasks they
wouldn’t normally get to do, and meeting
and working with individuals with whom
they would typically not interact. One indi-
vidual noted that the work she was exposed
to via the job bank gave her “some insight
into the type of work that various library
employees do. Just recently, I was thinking
about how there are so many departments
in the library and so many tasks that need
to be done. The amount of work it takes
to keep a university library running was
unbeknownst to me before I started work-
ing at one.”

While both supervisors and applicants
agree that the program was well-designed,
straightforward, and working well, they also
noted a few minor glitches. In one case,
an applicant had not received approval
to participate in the job bank, while in
another the project had to be put on hold
because the individual who applied could
not get the needed resources to work on
the project. One supervisor suggested that
there should be a better way to track hours,
while another stated that she could have

September 2020 397 C&RL News

done a better job guiding the project. It was
also noted that there may be a reluctance
on the part of some employees to ask their
supervisors for permission to apply for the
job bank postings. While not confirmed,
some of the reluctance may stem from the
overall concern around security of positions
due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As the job
bank matures, these issues can be addressed
and resolved.

Conclusions and future implications
All supervisors who posted projects and
tasks, as well as applicants hired for the
work, agree that the job bank is an excel-
lent way to support one another, further the
work of the libraries, leverage and expand
skillsets, network and build relationships,
and provide mentorship and leadership
opportunities. While the original intent of
the job bank was to match up employees
who have capacity while working remotely
with work that needed to be done, there
is consensus that it should be considered a

wonderful job enrichment opportunity that
should be continued even when we return
to work on-site. Or, as one project supervi-
sor stated, “I’m very excited to see where
the program goes in the future. I think it has
the potential to be a permanent fixture as
we move forward with working and inter-
acting with colleagues in a new way.”

Although the current pandemic is an un-
precedented disruption to higher education
and academic libraries, it is also an oppor-
tunity for innovation. This pilot project has
demonstrated that our current work distribu-
tion, such as fixed job responsibilities accord-
ing to positions and departments, could be
disrupted. With our new normal likely to be
much more flexible in terms of locations (e.g.,
working from home versus working in office
buildings), we can also see the new normal of
work assignments becoming much more fluid.
By deconstructing certain work responsibili-
ties based on interests and skills, an organiza-
tion could potentially improve productivity,
efficiency, and employee morale.

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