RONEN ZILBERMAN / RZILBERMAN@STARBULLETIN.COM
Florence Yee, a 30-year veteran of local libraries, has been named Hawaii State Library director.
Building collection
a priority for librarianWhat are your goals for the library?
Florence Yee
>> Promotion: Acting director of the Hawaii State Library since July 16, Yee has been named director.
>> Job: She oversees the main state library on King Street, as well as the Library for the Blind & Physically Handicapped.
We don't have the staff nor the funds we would like. I think the staff here has been doing a really commendable job, trying to look for ways to supplement the budget. Reference materials by their nature are expensive. Bestsellers are relatively cheap. You can buy them at a huge discount at places like Costco. Reference materials are picked up by just a few buyers and they're mostly institutions, such as colleges and libraries. Their costs are quite high. Because of the nature of our mission, we are expected to pick up many of these more expensive resources that not many of the branches have budget or room for. Because of our limited funding, we have not been able to keep up as we've wanted to. That has been a problem.
What's a solution?
We would like to get the collection up to fill in some of the gaps. The staff have been very creative about approaching various sources for funding. We have the Hawaii Library Foundation and we have the Friends of the Library. As a matter of fact, a specific instance that the Library Foundation assisted us: They partnered with the Building Industry Labor Association of Hawaii. That's something State Librarian Jo Ann Schindler had started when she was here at this library. By talking with the individuals in that group, they purchased a number of expensive building-code books and reference materials like that for the libraries. They were able to give enough money to the library system so Jo Ann shared it with the branches as well. Also HEI Charitable Foundation at HECO: They gave us a few thousand dollars to buy books on renewable energy.
What else is on your wish list?
I guess ultimately I would like to be able to increase service hours. The state librarian polled the library users on what they wanted and, no surprise, they wanted more hours. One thing we do is we check with our neighbors to see who is open when, so they can have complementary hours.
Isn't vacant job positions an issue for the library system?
We still have vacancies and we're working on that. We don't have enough people for coverage. Many of the libraries went to a single-shift operation. This library does have one double-shift day, that's Thursday. If you want to increase the hours, you need more shifts. As we go on, people do transfer, they retire, so forth. I think every time we look there's some retirement party announcement. The boomers were this huge group of people. They made a tremendous impact on the working population. And now they're leaving. Just about every profession, these people are retiring. The position I'm in now, that was vacant when the former occupant was appointed state librarian. Now my own position is vacant. So it's like musical chairs. The state librarian has approached the state recruiting office to see how they can help us. They have been just extraordinarily cooperative. They even developed a recruiting packet. The University of Hawaii Library and Information Science program had its first job fair a month ago. We had two tables along with 23 other prospective employers. We took some of the packets that the state made up for us. A few of us went over to the recent Public Library Association national conference in Seattle. We're all competing for the cream of the next crop of librarians.
Is the younger generation interested in working for libraries?
Oh, we certainly hope so. We have positions, student helpers -- many of our future ranks we think might come from them because they get a chance to see what it's like. Our young adult librarians, these are specialists who work with teens, go out to the schools and talk to the students about reading, but we also try to get them to think of us as possible career goals. I'm hoping to persuade people that this really is a wonderful profession. First of all, if you like to help people, that's a primary requirement. I think many young people are idealistic. The other thing about public libraries, there's a great variety of jobs. Because we're a centralized system, it's not just your neighborhood library and one position; you have the opportunity to work on any island in the state. I've been a librarian for over 30 years. I started out in cataloguing. Cataloguing is fine for people who work physically with a book, how to sort something in a way that the right person can find it. I was also a children's librarian. You get to work with kids. Some are very young kids. I can't describe how you feel when you tell them about a book and you see the response back in their eyes. It's all new. You can have your favorite story and it can be a story you learned as a child and you read it to them. It's like a discovery. It's like being a teacher except you don't have to assign papers. You don't have to give quizzes. It's all about telling kids that books and reading are really neat. You also get to know the people in your neighborhood. I think being a librarian is great job.
What sort of business resources does the library have?
We have a number of complete runs of business directories. We have the International Directory of Company Histories. That has been used by people considering working in other countries. We have investment services Morningstar and Value Line, and those are fairly expensive subscriptions. A lot of people are into investments, and they do track their mutual funds and stocks. Also, we have the only patent depository library in the Pacific. If we have inventors, or people who are seeking patents, this is a great place to start because they can look up to see if someone has something like it.
Inside Hawaii Inc. is a conversation with a member of the Hawaii business community who has changed jobs, been elected to a board or been recognized for accomplishments. Send questions and comments to business@starbulletin.com.
