Hi, I’m Deb Baker, Adult Services Manager at Concord Public Library in Concord, NH. I’m going to share my library’s customer service initiative, Send ‘Em Home Happy — intentional, affirmative customer service.
Around the time I became Adult Services Manager I got to attend PLA and also Supervisor’s Academy at Primex in Concord. I was FULL of ideas, and I wanted to write them ALL into my annual goals.
My biggest idea was this: what if we radically changed the way we interacted with the public at the service desks? Yes, we would still check items out and answer questions (mostly about where people’s print jobs have gone), but what if we looked at patron interactions as a way of connecting the library with the community?
What if we made our desk interactions relational, instead of just transactional? With our interim library directors’ blessing I invited Carl Weber, who teaches the customer service module at Supervisor’s Academy, to come in and work with the managers.
He asked us to notice our own interactions in stores and offices around town. Did we feel like we belonged or mattered? Like we never wanted to go there again? Or somewhere in between? And why?
He also suggested we sit down with our work groups and ask: what rules or procedures are getting in the way of providing good customer service in the library? This very interesting.
A couple of changes we made: teens no longer need an adult present to get a library card. And desk staff can override the system’s block when a patron whose card has expired calls to renew items or place holds.
Another thing Carl helped us see was that our desk staff didn’t always engage with people. Sometimes they (ok, to be honest — we) didn’t even look up from our monitors very much.
There was a reason — for years, staff were told not to be too chatty and to stay “busy” at the desks. They knew being friendly was important but there had been no formal training in how to promote the library through patron engagement. We had some staff trainings about the customer service interaction, and Carl spoke to the staff about the work the managers were doing.
One thing I learned at PLA is that librarians universally make the same marketing mistake: we know the library is awesome, what we have to offer is awesome, so we assume everyone else knows that too.
But I’ve had even longtime patrons thank me for showing them something as simple as how to login to their account online to renew items or where to find staff reviews. What’s obvious to us isn’t obvious to even our most regular patrons.
So every other month the CPL staff chooses a “Did You Know” feature to promote at our desks. We put up signs with a visual and a little info. on the patron side and talking points on the staff side to foster conversations.
During this whole process, our staff began to to think creatively about how to connect with patrons through displays, readers advisory and programming. What’s your staff into? Knitting? Zentangle? Cats?
Don’t be afraid to try something that might flop — staff passions have to match public interest to work. I tried another idea from PLA: Short & Sweet, a story or essay discussion and dessert. I had to let it go after 6 months of very low attendance.
But a staffer in her 20’s who really knows her geek stuff has very loyal followings for D&D Game Night and Teen Anime Club. She thrives and we thrive not just because we put these on the schedule, but because she’s connected to these communities and is bringing them into the library.
Someone on your staff who usually works behind the scenes may have something cool to share. In our case, a tech. services staffer set up a coloring station in the break room. Her art supplies are really cool and she got just about everyone to try it.
I asked her to consider offering adult coloring night. She was a little shy about it because she hadn’t done programming, but it’s our best attended offering — not just because coloring is hot, but also because she’s really good at sharing what she enjoys.
So that’s what we’re aiming for with every interaction.
The New Hampshire Library Association posted this story about San Francisco Public Library’s homeless outreach team on their Facebook page today. I find it intriguing that libraries are hiring outreach staff, some of them formerly homeless themselves, who are working with homeless patrons to help them meet their physical and even psychiatric needs. I immediately recalled an article in Harper’s last fall about Seattle Public Library and its much more punitive approach. Instead of social workers they hire guards.
Our library has rules that impact the homeless particularly (like no sleeping), but no guards. We have a good relationship both with our homeless patrons and with area outreach organizations. We have a handout at the reference desk about local social services, food pantries, shelters, and other resources. I think most of the staff are very respectful and kind to all the patrons, regardless of whether they’re homeless.
I think it’s great that libraries are stepping in to offer information — a core part of our mission after all — but I wondered about going so far as having “a full-time psychiatric social worker” as San Francisco has. Then I read that the ALA’s “Library Services to the Poor” policy, implemented in the 1980’s. As a part of promoting “equal access to information for all persons” the policy notes “it is crucial that libraries recognize their role in enabling poor people to participate fully in a democratic society.” A social worker who can refer someone to the help he or she needs is doing just that. And quite possibly making library guards a little less busy.
I felt pretty proud to be a librarian when I read the ALA policy, and I’ll be keeping it in mind when I’m working tonight. What’s your library doing to help the poor, and particularly the homeless?
But it does pose a quandary: what would people think of our main library being in another building, rather than in its own stand-alone building? Either way it would be a purpose-built main library for the city. Not that an existing building — like this former Walmart — can’t be converted into a gorgeous and very usable library.
Supporters have been lobbying for a new library for years, and if this is the best opportunity, I personally* think it sounds pretty forward thinking and appealing. The location of the site on South Main St. is not far from our indie theater, Red River Theatres, very near the Capitol Center for the Arts, the “Smile!” building, which houses the League of NH Craftsmen headquarters & gallery, and another new building opening this spring, anchored by New Hampshire’s oldest indie bookstore, Gibson’s. This would mean a library located right in the heart of a “creative corridor” in Concord’s South End, well within walking distance of the State House, the rest of Main Street, and residential neighborhoods.
As I said, when can I rent an apartment?
ALA’s professional wiki only lists four U.S. libraries in apartment buildings, two of which are in Seattle and all branches of systems with standalone central libraries. Does anyone know of a main library that’s in another building? How have people reacted to it? Do the other tenants of the building contribute in any way to the library’s mission — for example a cafe that hosts readings or book groups in partnership with the library? Have numbers of people visiting the library changed? I’d love to hear what your experience has been as a patron or staff member of a library in a mixed use building.
*My blog represents my own opinions and not that of my employer.