Dedication, persistence and teamwork

FLORIDA — Five staff members of the Florida Public Library have been awarded Certificates of Achievement at the highest level by the New York State Library Assistants’ Association and the New York Library Association.

The certificates were earned by Florida library employees Martha Sullivan, Ashley Baroch, Annette Shaughnessy, Marie Arnstein and Eileen Stelljes who each documented a minimum of 1,000 points to reach the Library Assistant Level IV standing.

To qualify for the certificate, the candidate must be a member of NYSLAA and declare a specialization in one of four areas of library service: Public Service, Technical Service, Automation, Administration/Management or in General Library Service which includes elements of all areas.

Breadth of knowledge
At Level IV, the candidate must demonstrate a breadth of knowledge in all four areas.

Sullivan, the library’s Web site administrator and director’s assistant, specialized in Administration/Management.

Baroch and Arnstein, who can usually be found right up front at the circulation desk, specialized in Public Service. (Arnstein also works part-time at the Monroe Free Library.)

Shaughnessy, the Florida Public Library’s computer expert and trainer, specialized in Automation.

Stelljes, retired from Josephine-Louise Public Library in Walden and now subbing at Florida, chose General Library Service.

As a team, these staff members have more than 40 years of public library experience.

Assembling the documentation included many long hours of developing a portfolio of competency statements that described each activity and the area of specialization for which it qualified. Employees formed a study group for this project and under Sullivan’s leadership, met on their own time on Friday evenings after the library closed to help each other work on the requirements.

Florida Director Madelyn Folino, Monroe Director Marilyn McIntosh and Walden Director Ginny Neidermier signed many competency statements to verify the materials created for submission. Melissa Tidd, a NYSLAA member who works at Goshen Public Library, volunteered as a local consultant on the process. The portfolios were assessed by the NYSLAA review board in time for the certificates to be awarded at the annual conference in Lake Placid in June.

‘Years of good work’
Ian Murphy, president of the library’s Board of Trustees, congratulated each of the award winners at a staff meeting in August with an honorarium to recognize their dedication, persistence and teamwork in achieving the highest level of the award.

“These awards represent the recognition and respect of their professional peers,” said Murphy, “but there’s another important aspect to them. There’s no way to earn this honor short of doing good work, across a breadth of disciplines, for years. The points accrued and documented by our employees are a testament to the whole-hearted work ethic they have always displayed.”