As part of the Statewide Public Library Development Projects, the Workforce Survey, Analysis and Planning Workgroup identified secondments as being an important part of professional development for Victorian public library staff and managers. This website has been developed in order to promote a culture of secondments among libraries and librarians, and to provide resources addressing the issues and benefits. It aims to encourage libraries in facilitating job exchanges and secondments. The development and exchange of skills, the testing of processes and the strengthening of networks that arise from such opportunities have benefits for the career development of the individuals involved and also for the home and host libraries and the library sector in general. Better librarians mean better libraries, better libraries mean better librarians.

The current practice of seconding staff between libraries is informal and has not been strong of recent times. There are a number of cases of staff undertaking temporary assignments as secondments after applying for advertised positions. These have generally been very successful in terms of professional development but can present administrative challenges.

There is not a formal process of staff exchanges. Such exchanges have occurred sporadically over the years. It is not proposed that a formal secondment or staff exchange program be implemented at this stage, but rather that secondments and staff exchanges be considered and encouraged between libraries for the benefits that can flow on to both the libraries involved (host and home) and to the individual staff member.

There are few recent accounts of secondments in the literature. Of the accounts published, most are from some time ago and deal with international job exchanges.

In 1994, the ACLIS/ALIA Victorian Working Party on Staff Exchanges produced a Staff Exchange Kit to provide a practical approach to organising and managing exchanges. There doesn’t appear to have been an enthusiastic uptake on the part of public libraries at that time.

Currently the most active program in Australia is organised by the Queensland University Libraries Office of Cooperation http://www.quloc.org.au/. Among their activities is an Inter-Organisational Experience Program www.quloc.org.au/working_parties/staffing_issues/reports/Inter_Org_Exp_Program.doc which aims to provide opportunities for people working in member libraries to:

• Learn how other organisations respond to business challenges to inform local practice.

• Facilitate career development by enhancing their expertise and awareness of other jobs, management and organisational work practices.

Interviews and surveys among staff who have been involved in exchanges presents a positive view of the professional development benefits. These benefits extend to staff at host libraries and are returned to the home library when seconded staff return.

The general experience appears to have been that libraries are encouraging of staff who pursue offers of secondment and exchange but are not proactive in encouraging staff to pursue such opportunities, or in creating such opportunities in their own libraries. There are exceptions to this with some library services having strong and successful programs in place.

Benefits

Here are some of the benefits listed by a range of staff who have undertaken secondments, temporary assignments or job exchanges at other libraries:

• ‘Excellent learning and development experience.’
• ‘Landing in a new environment with new processes and different people took me out of my comfort zone and gave me the opportunity to stretch my capacities.’
• ‘It reinvigorated my approach to my job, gave me new ideas, and I was able pass on observations from a different perspective.’
• ‘Developed a wider range of library contacts. Gave me a better understanding of the library world.’
• ‘I learnt new skills and was able to apply my skills in a new area.’
• ‘It gave me a broader view of my job and made me want to stretch myself more when I returned to my old job.’
• ‘When I came back to my old job I was able to see it with fresh eyes and be more critical and think more laterally with regard to entrenched practices.’
• ‘I was able to pass on what I learnt and what I observed to my colleagues.’
• ‘Learning another library’s way of doing things made me ask “why” a lot more and to ask the same question when I returned to my own library.’
• ‘I feel I was able to offer a different perspective at my host library, it was a win–win situation.’