a presentation, customer service, and a rant for all times

Monday, October 13th was Montgomery County's Staff Day and I was lucky enough to be one of the presenters for their breakout sessions. (actually, i was quite honored to be up against the Blackbelt Librarian!)

My session, Chat Reference 101, was basically playtime. I did give attendees an overview of what virtual reference is, what AskUsNow! does, and a BRIEF run through of how to run the software, but then, i had them play with it. Each attendee played both librarian and customer during the session, just like in regular day-long chat training classes. The experience was very valuable for me (and wonderful, i LOVE presenting!) and I think the attendees got a lot out of it as well. 

During the opening Keynote, their director, Parker Hamilton, touched on the uncertain economic times we are all facing and shared with her staff the clear choice that she's made on how she's going to get through it. 

You can read the full post about uncertainty on the Strange Librarian blog, but here's what i say about Parker's comments:

The director of the library system spoke of what i’m now naming “getting back to basics.” She freely admitted she didn’t know what was going to happen but that she did know how she, and her library system, was going to be able to make it to the other side. 

They were going to make it through excellent customer service. By providing the excellent customer care they’ve always been (but perhaps a little more now). They were going to get through it by cutting corners, yes; by making due without things they may be used to having, yes; but they were going to be able to get through things by continuing to do the things that matter- self care and the care of their customers.

What better way to get through crisis than to forget the worry and take care of yourself and those around you? The answers will come, and because you’ll have been taking care of the important things, you’ll be ready to act on them.

So if when we're in crisis, we get back to basics and those basics are providing good customer service and the customers themselves, how come it seems to fall off the radar at times when we're in the day to day of it all? It's very easy to slip into "find answers" mode and forget that we're not robots finding answers, or refilling the printer, or signing people up to get internet access- we are, at that very moment, uniquely positioned to build a relationship with that person at that moment (even if it doesn't last, like in the case of chat reference). At that very moment we have a direct and immediate impact on someone's life. Our interactions are not about answers, or paper, or books, or circ stats, they're about people and people's lives. 

This concept should be applied to both internal and external customer service because we're not just interacting with people when we're working with the public; we interact with people when we're working with our colleagues too. 

What kind of a world would we all live in if we all remembered that each interaction we have with people, especially when we are helping someone do something (find a book, answer a question). Because we're not just finding a book or answering a question, it goes deeper than that. We're finding a book that will cheer them up, or we're helping them find answers to questions that keep them up at night. 

We each have a direct and immediate impact on LIVES. Sure, we're not directly saving a life in the conventional sense of stitching them up or putting their femur back in their body, but we're touching and saving lives in ways we probably will never know. But each interaction we have with people could potentially turn into that live changing story that people later tell about their interactions with librarians. 

You are in a very noble profession. You should be proud. 

I am. :-)

You are the future of Libraries, no pressure.

(originally posted on the strange librarian)



On Wednesday, June 18th, David Lankes spoke at UMCP. "If libraries fail, is (our) fault. no pressure." Here are some of my notes:

The Question you ask is important.
What is the future of libraries?
What should be the future of libraries?
What should be the future of libraries and librarians?
What should be the future of libraries and librarians in a democracy? (especially in a time of the Patriot Act and habeas corpus. You want to live in a land of freedom? It's not because of what we shelve, but because we tell the truth.

We need to stop talking about whats going to happen TO us and start talking about what we are GOING TO DO. We need to be proactive, not reactive, in defining our roles. Librarians aren't done- we're redefining, reimagining, reworking who we are and what we do.

We spend too much time worrying about process. We need to think about the end goal and let the processes and technology help, not hinder, those goals. What is our fundamental and recognizable contribution? (market this!)

Conversation is exchanging language (meaning and symbols) seeking agreements. [library jargon- how much accommodation do we have for people who don't know our language?]Knowledge is created through conversations. Libraries are the memory holder of the human story/cultural record. Are we capturing these conversations? No! By the time they come to us, they're inviting us into the conversation but very late in the game, not starting the conversation WITH you! How awesome would it be to be able to say, "conversations around this topic tend to go here..." instead of "here's a mound of resources with no context for you to look at." Access isn't the answer and is insufficient for knowledge creation. Context is just as important, if not more so, than content. Context is lost in things like databases- articles don't appear within the whole of their journal, and there's no e-margin writing! We need to capture the context and the conversations, not get in the way of them. We need to worry about their long term storage!

A syllabus is a map of a conversation. Academic libraries- are you saving them?

Libraries are in the "knowing business" and that spans disciplines. Instead of library usage statistics, we should be analyzing the conversations that are happening in our community (inside and outside of our physical and virtual doors).

Public and academic libraries need to partner up to even out the bumps in learning.


Don't create another vision statement, just go out and change the world.
If you chase, you will only ever be 2nd.
Don't ride the wave, be the wave machine. Function as your community does. Are your librarians your customer's interface? Know your communities.
Who are you serving? What is their language? Where are there? Are you there?

You have to care. You have to have a voice. Manage up. Lead up. We need to teach people how to be change agents (here's the admin, here's how to win them over or overthrow them). Dysfunctional innovation = looking to the young kid who knows about wiki but has no idea about the politics of the organization. There needs to be a communal conversation.