Advice on helping relationships between Librarians and Clerks (& Pages)?
So, right now at my workplace we're dealing with some issues;
Long story short there were some comments made about the librarians being lazy from clerks while speaking to patrons... and another where it is becoming apparent that some staff are completely bypassing librarian permissions with changing item labels and where they are located on shelves in our respective collections without notifying us (until we find out while searching for the item).
This has led to some emails being sent out about professionalism, and likely a one on one with some of the staff members involved with the above.
My perspective (as a librarian who was a clerk in the past for a few years before graduating, etc. etc.) is I'm wondering if since most of the librarian work we do at my branch feels a bit invisible - does it appear as though we are not doing anything since we are not being as active as the clerks.
They handle delivery, most patron interactions, library card sign ups, etc. - while a good number of librarians are off at a different dedicated reference desk keeping us further separated. (We also have offices and mine is the furthest so I wonder if perhaps not being out an about as much has been detrimental).
Overall I was wondering, would it be too forward straight up asking the clerks more if there is anything bothering them/if they need help/have any questions?
Or would there be a better way to more subtly handle this??
Some other ideas I'm kicking around is I wonder if they feel underappreciated for all they do, do they feel we are not keeping their duties in mind when asking for help, I remember my days as a clerk since we were the ones at the front - we also were the ones that hedged a lot of upset patrons or curbed issues before they could escalate. Lots of stress!
Right now our director is out until next week, the assistant director has been made aware, I am just wondering if anyone has dealt with the above before and how it was resolved?