indicated that they too will train all staff to this standard, as well as requiring staff to

have advanced Internet skills. 

Some employees see such demands as threatening; the average age of library workers

is around 47 years. So it is a challenge to help change the staff's self image from that of

a lender of books to an enabler of IT skills for the community. However, most staff

members seem to relish the opportunity and are pleased that their skills are now so

much in demand. The advent of online learning has made the process of training staff

much more affordable, both directly and indirectly. The introduction of patron self 

service, which frees staff from mundane work such as issuing materials, is also contributing

to the changing role of library staff.

Somerset (UK) County has invested wisely in staff with appropriate ICT skills,

knowledge and culture, in ICT systems and in ICT equipment. The demands of 

e government for front office systems as well as the need to continue providing best

value back office systems puts substantial pressure on resources. The complete range of

required skills cannot be supplied in house, so a mixture of delivery options including

procurement, partnership and retraining must be established.

Councils are likely to discover fairly quickly that in many cases personnel are simply

not there on site. In the UK, for example, the University of Sheffield has identified a

future leadership and recruitment crisis, as more and more newly qualified librarians

opt for higher education and private sector employment. The reality is that for some

libraries, the skill base may not exist in the service to ensure participation in e govern 

ment. Action needs to be taken to address this   locally, regionally and nationally. In

Fairfax, Virginia, the county library has an arrangement with a local university to train

staff who are then placed within the service. Similar arrangements existed in the UK in

the 1960s and early 70s but have fallen into abeyance as budget pressures increased.

The concept is now back on the agenda.

Increasingly, as e workers or knowledge workers in various disciplines become

involved in a whole range of council services, they will be employed as local government

staff. An example of a possible scenario: a social services care worker visits a client,

deals with disability aid materials, state benefits and library membership, all via a laptop

computer linked to the council via a mobile phone.

Librarians have two sets of key skills that are at a premium in libraries as well as in

local government. These are:

29