I am my church's library director and I do this job completely voluntarily. I've been asked to help an acquaintance of mine do some catch up cataloging for her church's library. She has stated she will pay me whatever I want. There are probably 100 books and DVD's. Not a big job, but it has been time consuming. I am keeping up with the hours I'm working on this. I was just wondering if I should charge her and how much? I have a full time job working in a university library for which I get paid around $18.00 an hr. I don't feel like I should charge that much, but I just don't know. Any help or suggestions would be appreciated.
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Thank you for your opinions.
I'm assuming that your friend asked you to help with the cataloging due to your knowledge of DD system. That's only understandable. Or is it because she has the knowledge, but needs to get caught up? In my 30 years of experience, my feeling is that 99% of church librarians are strictly volunteer. I believe that you should look at the project as a service to your friend and her church. Would you expect to be paid $18.00 an hour if it was cataloging for YOUR church library?
I would suggest that if your friend wants to repay you, she could take you to lunch or offer a gift card. I have given a gift card to a (church member) carpenter that made a book drop deposit for our church. I wouldn't want to set a standard for paid for by the hour. This would NOT sit well with the other volunteers that help at your friends church. Also, what happens when she needs help the next time? Does she have this money in her budget and would her church financial person authorize this payment. Lots of questions and consequences. Think through the process.
I see it a little differently. You have a full time job and your own church library job and you have time for another job at a church not your own? Wow! Personally, I think you should be paid - you are a professional, not just a trainable volunteer, and you are already working full time - this is not a volunteer job as a retiree with a lot of free time. Paul said the laborer was worth his pay, didn't he?
I wonder, if your pastor was asked to fill in for several sermons for another pastor, which required him to prepare an additional message each week (different from his own sermon), would the other church expect to have him come do several sermons for free? Now, if they had a mutual swap of sermons for each other for vacations or emergencies, that's different - maybe your friend (or some of her volunteers) could donate an equivalent amount of time for your library? Granted, they are not on the same professional level but there are probably several different tasks they could do to help you. Inventory help? Book repairs? Cleaning, painting shelving, whatever. Maybe you need extra help with a summer kids' reading program, etc. Swap an hour for an hour of their labor - I think that's fair.
Our church has a custodian/handyman who is amazing. He has done a number of things for our library - some of which have taken more than a day's work (he rebuilt our shelving to fit in our new room, built a book drop box, etc.), but he is paid by the church and he does it on the church's time. I would not expect to ask him to do it on his own time.
Yes, a lot of church librarians do it strictly as a volunteer ministry, but not all by any means. I know a number of paid librarians at the larger churches in our area. These gals are working 20+ hours a week; by comparison, most volunteers may work a few hours at most a week. I would say at least 1 or 2 out of every 10 church librarians or workers I know is paid - that's between 10% - 20%, not 1% who are paid. Maybe it is different in your area, but here (especially if there is a church school) there is often a paid librarian.