One person library

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A One Person Library (OPL) is a library or a special library that is looked after by only one person and that has no direct supervisors in the supporting organization, i.e. is on its own in terms of its subject matter. This can be a One Professional Librarian, a semi-skilled or a layperson. It covers the (not always) clearly defined information needs of the organization / company and its customers or the community. They can be found in both academic and public libraries. One Person Libraries make up the majority of libraries in the world.

The librarian of a one person library has to carry out almost all business processes that are usually carried out in larger libraries using a division of labor (acquisition, cataloging, administration, user advice, information, marketing). This can hardly be grasped with the usual rules of library management, so the OPL approach can be understood as a separate area of ​​library management.

This includes:

  • Self-management: optimizing division of activities, training
  • Time management and planning: effective, forward-looking work
  • Personnel management: advertising, training and optimizing use of non-technical employees in the OPL (semi-skilled workers, volunteers)
  • Change management: Staying up-to-date with regard to professional development and implementation in your own business activities
  • Presentation of benefits to the library owner: lobbying, management by walking around
  • Library marketing: promotion of library services, training
  • Networking: Working with other libraries to supplement missing resources with help from one another
  • Enforcement and improvement of disadvantages under salary and classification law

Since this form of organization is also burdened with limited resources, poor pay and / or classification, there is often a desire to exchange ideas with other people in this work area and to overcome professional isolation. This need was first recognized in the USA, where the Special Libraries Association (SLA) set in motion the OPL movement through Guy St. Clair and Andrew Berner, two New York OPLs. They then founded a company that published the OPL newsletter, training events and coaching were offered. In the 1990s this movement spread to Germany.

Examples of OPL are:

  • Government libraries
  • Court libraries
  • Museum libraries
  • School libraries
  • Corporate libraries: pharmaceutical companies, economic research institutes, research-based companies
  • Libraries of (scientific) specialist and research societies
  • Church libraries
  • Documentation centers
  • Societies (law firms, business lawyers)
  • Patent offices
  • Children's and youth libraries

literature

  • Karin Aleksander, Christina Beckmann, Ute Czerwinski, Corinna Haas, Jana Haase, Max Hallmann, Claudia Loest, Iris Schewe, Pamela Schmidt, Katja Schöppe-Carstensen: Everyday life in Berlin's one-person libraries - a collective diary . In: LIBREAS. Library Ideas . No. 33 , 2018, ISSN  1860-7950 ( libreas.eu [accessed May 24, 2018]).
  • Constantin Cazan: The OPL Movement: Origin, Definition and Theses. Arbido 2002, Vol. 17, no.5, pp. 5-8 (14 ref.) ISSN  1420-102X
  • Larry Cooperman: Managing the One-Person Library , Chandos Publishing, Waltham 2015. ISBN 978-1-84334-671-5
  • Brigitte Höckmair: OPL management. Workflow organization of a one-person library . Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 1997. ISBN 3-447-03936-1
  • Martina Kuth: Practical Management in One Person Libraries , Berlin, 2015. ISBN 978-3-11-033872-0
  • Guy St. Clair: One-Person Libraries: Tasks and Management . German Library Institute, Berlin 1998. ISBN 3-87068-969-2
  • René Thalmair: OPL is dead, long live the OPL . In: Announcements of the Association of Austrian Librarians . tape 66 , no. 2 , 2013, p. 295-316 ( handle.net ).

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