Good mission, excellent outward service; horrible internal structure and culture.
Pros
The staff at service level (in branches around the county) are generally a fantastic group and the leadership out there is connected to their staff. If you want to work with KCLS, work in the branches and avoid the Service Center.
Cons
Plagued by an overabundance of leaders and supervisors who are ineffective, out of touch, backwards and rigidly adhere to a 1970s-esque view of how business should be done and its employees used. The central leadership and supervisory team is staffed by exactly the people you don't want in leadership roles. Each considers themselves an independent silo and their work more important than the work of other teams or departments. Internal culture and progress as an organization is stymied by lip service towards better working environments, better delineation of work, and greater workplace diversity, but zero action is ever taken. The perpetual promise of a better day coming down the road as they continue to downsize already overworked departments, and start committees and projects that by their own admission, will ultimately go no where. Most staff in the central administration building, the Service Center, keep their head down as much as possible, but higher profile positions tend to be continually overworked and overburdened with "special cases" and "just this once"'s and "no, this is more important", followed quickly by admonishment for not handling workload properly. All that stacked onto a network of middle management that is not accountable to their own supervisors and given free-reign to issue punitive measures as they see fit. If you want an employer with ongoing and open hostility between leadership and your union, ineffective HR leadership, ineffective and mistake riddled Payroll department, a sexist and homophobic Facilities department, a petty and controlling Graphics department, a toxic Cataloging department, and then come home only to find you no longer have the emotional more mental energy to support a healthy home life? -- KCLS is for you. If you want to grow in your career, build bridges, make a difference, and have opportunities for networking with other excited professionals in your filed, you may want to look elsewhere. Or at least get in, get what you need (benefits? decent pay?) and then get out when something even marginally better comes along.
