Competency of Library Public Relation Practitional

As we know, library public relation is the relationship of your library with its borrowers, with
the non-borrowers of your community, with your trustees or library committee, with dealers,
collectors, salesmen of equipment, with your staff and the administration for which you work
with. As a library public relation practitioner, it is crucial to have the required competencies of
this public relation in order to achieve a good image for the library.
The most important competency for a library public relation practitioner is personal and
interpersonal competencies. As a professional library public relation practitioner, you must
interact productively with others in order to accomplish your own and your organizations
goals.
1. Develops and maintains effective relationships with others to achieve common
goals.
As a good library PR practitioner, we have to treats everyone with honesty, respect
and fairness to build an environment of trust. That includes the staffs in the library,
the user of the library and other people that have the relationship towards the library.
It is also important to acknowledge own strengths and contributions, and recognizes
the complementary strengths and contributions of others because this is one of the
way to develop a good relationship with them. Besides that, a good practitioner
shares knowledge gained through professional discussions, formal courses and
informal channels with colleagues. Gives and receives constructive feedback from
co-workers, supervisors and users. Hence, we can use the ideas of those
discussions and feedback to improve the library.
2. Work effectively in teams with strong team-building skills and attitudes.
Needless to say, teamwork is really important for a PR practitioner to achieve
success. As a team, it is important to contribute constructively to the achievement of
the teams goals and objectives even we just be able to make some small contributes
towards it. Besides that, as a practitioner, we need to participate actively in
information-gathering and decision-making in order to promote the best interests of
the team. We also need to find opportunities to help others to develop new ideas and
achieve their full potential.
3. Applies effective strategies to manage organizational politics, conflict and
difficult co-worker behaviors.
As a PR practitioner, we need to understand that organizations are inherently political
(including libraries) and develops strategies to become an effective player. Besides
that, we need to examine routinely our own behavior, accepts accountability for own

actions and adjusts appropriately. Then, we also should understand and apply
strategies for conflict resolution.

The other main competency is competency towards the customer service. The delivery of
excellent customer service is a fundamental factor in effectiveness and needs to be
prioritized throughout the organization. This is because interactions with users require trust,
respect and focus on the needs of the individual. It is necessary to deliver quality customer
service to virtual users as well as to users within the building.
1. Manages the library environment to enhance the user experience.
A good library should organise the librarys collections and work areas to appeal to
users and to meet their needs. This is to make the search of the materials become
easier for the user. Besides that, a good PR practitioner provides a good quality
customer service to virtual users as well as to users in the building, ensuring that
customer service principles are applied to online interactions.
2. Develops and evaluates standards and practices for the delivery of quality
customer service.
We can create a customer service plan. This can make us easier to understand the
policy and skills towards the customer services. Besides that, we should anticipate
and maintain the awareness of users needs and wants through customer service
surveys, complaint logs and other means. Nowadays, only some of the users are
informed about the customer services. Thus, as a library PR practitioner, we need to
inform the users about the services that is available. We can also determine the
relative needs of users, suppliers and library staff, and strives for balance in
supporting them to achieve their goals.
3. Applies customer service skills to enhance the level of user satisfaction.
Treats users in a welcoming, professional manner and provides other staff with an
example of positive customer service that can be done by the practitioner. With this
kind of behaviour, the users will be pleased and they will regularly come to the library.
Acts as a goodwill ambassador for the library, promoting the librarys values and
services in all user interactions is also important. Besides that, a practitioner should
be able to demonstrate thorough knowledge of all aspects of the organization that
impact users such as .mission and vision, policies and procedures, collections and
services, and system-wide strategies.
The third competency that a library public relation practitioner should have is leadership.
Sometimes, it is not necessary to have manager or director in our title in order to be a
leader. There are many opportunities to demonstrate leadership at any level. Solid project

management skills, alignment with organizational vision and goals, and being responsible to
others are all components of being a leader.
1

Demonstrates leadership qualities and behaviour.

Sometimes, we should actively pursues and accepts leadership roles and
demonstrates ability to lead teams effectively because sometimes the member of the
team can realize if we are not able to lead them with good leadership. If this
happens, the team will not be able to achieve the goals that they have targeted.
Besides that, taking initiative, seeks new opportunities and challenges, and applies
creative and innovative thinking are also some of the skills a leader should possess.
A practitioner have to make sure that they can get these skills in order to lead a

group.
Anticipates and adapts to change and challenges effectively.
As a leader, we have to anticipate and adapt to any changes and challenges
effectively. This is to make sure that the achievements of the library can be improved.
For example, technologies are evolving every day. Thus, as a leader and a
practitioner, it is important to take caution of those issues. Besides that, we also
should be brave to recommends and takes reasonable risks to test implementations
of change.