[Publib] My muddled meditation -- a postscript

[John]

I should mention that I *do* use the self-check stations at the grocery
store.  (Side comment: In the area Wal-Mart supercenters, self-check
stations have been added, liberally...and every time I've been to
Wal-Mart within recent memory, none of the stations has been open, and
there haven't been enough cashiers on duty, either.  Given the business
in question, I'm not completely surprised.  It does seem as if it could
be emblematic of something, like prevailing schizoid and/or dishonest
attitudes about service, good or otherwise, in the world of retail.)
And if we didn't need a new parking lot, and an upgraded sign out by the
main thoroughfare that borders APL--after this past winter, if it *is*
past, we want to be able to change the sign from inside, via
computer--and a new long-range plan with consultant in attendance and
more paid help to keep our lovely but over-landscaped property
maintained, well, I might consider a self-check station at the library.
Except that we don't really have room for it.

Also, magazines like Time tend to print articles that can be
provocative, but that may be all.  Not all truth is to be found in
articles or headlines that leap out of the slick pages of news
magazines.  So "the end of customer service" is part hyperbole, I'd
guess.

And that little old--well, new--kiosk at the Peoria airport really *did*
work on my way up to Minneapolis, and the crush of human traffic was not
so great that I couldn't deal with it in a leisurely manner. 

I do think that we live in an interesting time, whether it's interesting
in the sense of that allegedly Chinese, allegedly ancient, curse (the
curse itself may be *alleged*), or interesting in other ways.
Public/customer/patron/client service appears to me to be in a period of
change, a mixture of the old and new, and I have no idea what will
triumph in the end.  Maybe there never will be a triumph of one thing
over the other, in the end.  But there are many *challenges* in all
this.  And so my philosophical meditating.  Today I have been working at
shifting books, which really is the pages' job, but it's nice to do
something concrete and quantifiable, every now and then, and lay
philosophy aside.

Though we *are* shifting the collections around in order to provide
better service, so even in shifting books, I cannot escape The Deeper
Things in life.

John D. Richmond, Director
Alpha Park Public Library District
3527 So. Airport Road
Bartonville, IL 61607
Ph: (309) 697-3822, ext. 12
Fax: (309) 697-9681
E-mail: jrichmond at alphapark.org
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"To do two things at once is to do neither." -- Publilius Syrus, 1st
century B.C.