Great Place to Start, Not The Best to Stay - Librarian St. Mary's County Library Employee Review

Incredibly supportive staff and administration. Serves an active community. Makerspace with another on the way!

Hard to advance in the system. More conservative community that can have some push back on the collection and programming, but getting better

-There are professional courtesy perks such as free printing, being able to pick up holds at your job, free summer reading shirts -Generally quiet environment -Ideal for candidates just getting back into the workplace after several years of being out of the workforce, for those seeking to gain work experience, and those who want a retail job with an office feel. -You feel like your job has a community impact. -The work is generally steady, ideal for individuals who like have a variety of little detail oriented office tasks to do.

-For a job that requires so much from their employees pay is less or equivalent to working for McDonald's once they take out state retirement, also a lot of the same issues you might expect in low level work environments. -Toxic work culture: lack of professional boundaries, passive-aggressive behaviors, hostile work environment (these attitudes are most frequently directed toward lower level staff), concerns often dismissed by leadership, culture of micromanagment. Contributes to high turnover rate for employees. -Limited opportunities for professional development: no advancement without additional degrees, training expected to be taken at turbo speed but this does not lead to career advancement, promotions tend to be given on the basis of favoritism or being related to leadership. -Library executives openly discourage unionizing -Upper management lacks accountability and appears disconnected from day to day operations -There are lots of committees in which decisions are made rather arbitrarily by select staff members -Workplace policies are expected to be followed to the letter of the law and are frequently used to justify hostile behavior toward employees and also hostile behavior toward customers -Recent changes in library leadership have led to library core values and beliefs being belittled and treated like a hackneyed phrase on a needlepoint pillow. They are treated as meaningful on paper only, which I found incredibly demoralizing.