The resulting unevenness in staff skills led to services to members being unacceptably variable and to problems in drafting duty rosters. Top Library Training Officer Officer 1998 was the year that all this changed, taking a lead from the BMA-wide staff appraisal scheme which is itself centred on staff development and training. For the first time a senior member of library staff took on explicit responsibility for identifying and managing the overall training needs of the whole operation, working closely with the BMA's corporate training officer. A training needs assessment was put together, based on interviews with every member of library staff and on the results of our 1997 surveys and focus groups of library users. A key element in this plan was that a training programme would only be effective if it was woven into the fabric of the working week.
Shops face much the same set of problems and pressures.
The most common solution for those that take training seriously is that on their quietest trading day of the week they open an hour later than usual and use the time for organised training and education sessions. The September meeting of the BMA Board of Science and Education approved a proposal copy this idea and to open the library at 10am each Thursday. The change was implemented early in November and the training programme has been in full swing ever since. The core of the programme is the small-group tutorial session led by the library's specialist in a particular subject, activity or system, and most weeks there are several of these in progress throughout the reading room and library offices. There are also occasional general sessions for all staff, and the training hour is often used for the preparation of teaching sessions and for practice sessions and individual work which follows on from the more formal sessions.