circulation assistant

technology assistant

information specialist

customer experience associate

youth specialist

St. Louis Public Library

Working for the library is a unique experience where employees interact with community members from all facets of life. Many of the employees also come from all walks of life, which makes for an interesting and usually fun work culture. However, like many other large public libraries in the area, the system as a whole can be very top-heavy with front-facing staff bearing the brunt of poor leadership, administrative-led decisions, and ambiguity in training at times. To truly enjoy this workplace, you have to enjoy helping people, interacting with a diverse employee community, avoiding or ignoring negative co-workers, and communicating your needs in a mature and diplomatic manner. There can be poor managers or co-workers across the branches (from time to time), so it is important to know how to strategically navigate adverse situations. For those who would prefer to move up, if you have patience, there are opportunities to move up, but libraries are slow and methodical with salaries, so this isn't the place for those who solely care about money.

Every branch has a different manager and is in a different area of the city.  At some libraries your experience will be more relaxed, with less patrons.  At some libraries it might be busy with strict managers.  Or anything inbetween or mixed.  I am not knowledgeable about every library, I am letting you know that it's difficult to review.  

I had a great experience, but found that raises mostly were to stave off inflation, and that promotions only get you so far if you aren't getting a masters in library science.  If you want to make the library your career, the library will pay a part of your tuition towards it as part of an agreement.  

The work is challenging but satisfying.  It feels closer to social work sometimes than what you would normally think of as library work.  It's not a bad thing, but it can be stressful and most positions will have awkward front facing encounters.

Yearly vacation and sick time is phenomenal. 

The days were usually either not enough or too much. Management was unbalanced.  The day began with me arriving 30-45 early and eating breakfast and drinking coffee.  I would then pick up where ever I left off the day before.  Once my boss arrived I would work on whatever he needed me to work on.  Sometimes he was straight forward with what he needed done and sometimes he was unclear or unfocused.
We did a lot of going over the same information sometimes due to one or both of us not being focused. We finally found a way to agree on navigating through what each one of us needed to do for the remainder of the day.
I believed a learned a little about government purchasing. The hardest part of my day was dealing with a supervisor who was more focused on destroying morale than working toward the vision of the company.  I. like many others at the Library believed that from the top the main focus was to preserve the outside image.  there seemed to be little concern about the internal image.

Working at SLPL could have been a truly wonderful job, but management was never on the same page and different branches were given different levels of autonomy and freedoms. Management explicitly stated that HR would not rescue staff from conflicts with them, and expectations were difficult to meet due to high volume of patrons and other daily needs.
6 month probationary period allows management to terminate people without explanation, and there is no sick time allotted for people in probation period.
Complete lack of support or communication from leadership, no morale boosting, and an actual culture of secrecy and denial for fear of losing one’s job.
I wish I’d approached HR about many concerns when I had the chance.

And yet, the staff and patrons were a joy to serve. Could’ve been an amazing place.

I unfortunately had to leave my position with the library during the height of Covid-19. One of the staff had contracted Covid, and instead notifying those who were on staff with that person, or giving people time to quarantine, we were asked to keep coming to work as if nothing happened. This among other lax procedures in regards to Covid were ultimately the reason I left. Otherwise, I have almost no complaints about this job. Most of the people I worked with were kind and had a lot of experience in their field. I also loved interacting with some of the patrons, and helping them find what they needed genuinely brought me joy. One thing I will say concerned me is that we could not seem to get consistent security for the library sometimes. We would occasionally get unruly patrons when there was not a security guard on staff, and it could get kind of scary trying to deal with the patron on our own. 

A typical day for a shelver is that you're on your feet for a few hours pulling and shelving books and other library material if you are working 2 to 3 hours a day with no break in-between, the workplace for the most part is fine but nothing to really brag about. There is nothing really hard about this job, but you do need to get a good understanding about the Dewey Decimal system and know where everything is located, sometimes. I like my job, helping others and doing special projects but after a while, it gets frustrating, low pay, politics and other bs.

I love working for the library, and I love my job here. The people I work with are very friendly, and overall there is a good culture here. The problem is that since it's a nonprofit library in the city, the pay isn't very good. Also, some departments have very little room for advancement, forcing people to max out on salary for years at a time or forcing them to find better opportunities. This is not a job I hate coming to, and my boss & coworkers are all pleasant to work with. 

If you want to work at a library and that is more important to you than a big paycheck, this is the place to come. If and when I leave this company it'll be a sad day because I'm honestly happy with my job here.

I cannot speak for all branches of SLPL, but the one I volunteered at was really relaxed and slow-paced. It was a good position if you enjoyed minimal interaction with people, but the work was slightly tedious and redundant. I personally enjoyed the relaxing atmosphere, but I could not see myself working there as an actual employee because I prefer more interaction, and I did not the few interactions I had to be restricted to children and the occasional person who only needed assistance for a few minutes. My supervisors were really nice and patient with me, and it was very easy to talk to all of the staff.

For as much as I enjoyed the coworkers, the cool customers, and the beautiful building, SLPL is not managed well. There is no consistency, no communication, and limited room for advancement in roles like circulation or materials. It's obnoxious to try to jump through the hoops of an incompetent HR department and how wildly your experience can vary depending on what branch you're at. SLPL is a great system for the customers, but not so much for employees. Jobs like mine have the highest turnover and least support.

Typically, I create several patron accounts per day while also checking items in and out and taking in money for fines. People that come in are generally friendly. The management at my branch does their best to make everyone comfortable and welcome, among employees and patrons. Co-workers are great with each other and treat each other with equal respect. There are seldom very significant disagreements. The hardest part of the job is probably dealing with patrons that seem set on making things difficult. The best part of the job is meeting lots of new people each day from all walks of life and working with supportive people.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Circulation assistant 21 salaries reported	$15.77 per hour
Technology assistant 14 salaries reported	$18.27 per hour
Information specialist 2 salaries reported	$17.61 per hour
Customer experience associate 2 salaries reported	$19.74 per hour
Youth specialist 2 salaries reported	$19.74 per hour

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