Libraries and E-government part 2

To follow-up to yesterday's post about libraries and e-government. The point I'm trying to make is that libraries are being asked to assume a great deal of extra responsibility with no extra funding. Basically what is happening is that many government entities are streamlining their services in an effort to cut costs. One of the ways they do this is by putting information they used to provide in print form into an electronic format. While there is no doubt that this streamlines their workload, the work doesn't just disappear. In fact, the work load has to be picked up by someone else, and in this case it's the public library.

There are other solutions to the problem. One of them would be to just refuse to help and send them back to the government agency. While this would be extremely poor service by the library, it would get the message back to places like DCF that we are not going to pick up their slack.
Another option is to allow the customer internet access - which we already do - and show them which web site they need, then walk away and refuse to offer any additional help. Again this is a customer service problem, but it protects the librarian from a huge responsibility and liability for the patron personal information.
A third option is to arrange for a training session from someone working for a government department. DCF in Florida does have a liaison for most counties and is apparently willing to send people out to conduct training sessions. I feel this creates the problem of our enabling DCF to continue shirking their responsibility by taking over a portion of their job. Again, librarians are not and should not have to be social workers. On the other hand, if DCF is going to kick back to us some of the $30 million they are "saving" each year by not offering services, then perhaps we could make a deal.
The big picture here is that libraries need to find their niche for the 21st century. The only way to do this is by offering needed services for the public and being able to prove that we have value. This will mean having direct statistical evidence that we are providing services - number of applications for food stamps we helped with this month, number of e-government website visits, number of job applications assisted with, etc. If we can bring those kind of numbers to the state legislature via our lobbyists, then perhaps we can start seeing more money to offset the costs associated with being government's safety net.

Libraries and E-government

As governments attempt to streamline their services and cut down on their spending they have once again managed to shift the burden of responsibility for some issues onto other parts of society while patting themselves on the back for allegedly saving money.
A glaring example of this shift is the e-government issue. In an effort to cut down on paperwork and staffing, many governmental departments have shifted to an electronic application format. This sounds good on the surface because it means less paperwork, fewer staff and a significant amount of saving. However there is another issue that this shift brings up. Namely, does someone else have to take the burden for state or local government's efforts to save money.
In this case, it's your local library. By and large, librarians are suddenly finding themselves having to assume additional duties - particularly in areas they are untrained for like social work - because government departments have moved needed documents to an electronic format and are sending the patrons "...to the library. They have people there that can help you."
In reality, librarians by and large do not have degrees in social work, yet we are being asked to fill that role while places like the Department of children and families congratulate themselves for saving millions of dollars by putting everything online. This shifting of the burden of responsibility is a travesty. Librarians should not be put in the position where one wrong answer on a form could potentially affect a client for more than a year.
One of the other problems with this shift to "e-government" is that the target audience for many services are on literate in the use of the computer. This is particularly true for those library patrons who may need food stamps or other welfare-related items. These patrons will need the most assistance, and they are increasingly having to rely on librarians who are ill-trained to help them.
Maybe what needs to happen is some data collection and billing. For example, the library could track all their e-government requests for help, track the time those tasks took out of a librarians day and send a bill monthly to the affected departments or (better yet) the governor's office in the hope that when budget time comes the legislature will see fit to free up more money for the public library.