[Publib] (no subject)

[Phalbe Henriksen]

Mary Soucie wrote:
> Tom,
> This could start an interesting conversation. Mine would be:
> never point the patron in the direction, walk them to wherever
This was an issue way back when I watched a 16 mm film (or was that a 
3/4" videotape?) about the Baltimore model. (Wasn't it Baltimore? Time 
clouds.)

If you get up (in the case of this model, staff person A was sitting) 
and walk a patron to wherever he/she wants to go, the next patron at 
that now unstaffed desk gets no service at all until staff person A 
returns to the desk. So much for the Baltimore model. They didn't 
address this issue.

And that brings up a point that hasn't been mentioned: Do you have 
enough staff to pull all this off?

I truly believe that phones should be answered within three rings. Do I 
have enough staff to pull that off? Yes, if *everyone* on the staff 
understands my priority about it and buys into it.

However, if I have three people at the circ desk (the first line phone 
answering), and two are furiously at work checking items in and out and 
the third one is furiously busy answering the phone and signing people 
in and out for computer use, who is there to walk patrons to wherever?

There *are* ways to point:

I worked in a library that had stuffed dinosaurs on top of the high 
shelves over the dinosaur books. That saved *thousands* of times staff 
would have walked a child to the far corner of the library to show 
him/her where the dinosaur books were.

Laser pointers could work, in some instances.

Directions like "third shelf from the top on the second (whatever)..." 
depending on how good your signage is.

And I've already posted about my uncle and his system of light bulbs 
over the over-the-counter medicine a customer would ask for. His 
customers were loyal. I never heard of anyone being put off by a light 
bulb turning on over the shelf where the medicine he wanted was.

I think we haven't put enough thought into modern ways of getting around 
that "walk them to wherever" service. Surely technology is just dangling 
out there, just waiting to be developed/implemented, to enhance our 
service. What about those "ropes" of "chasing lights"? Can they be adapted?


Phalbe Henriksen
Director
Alexander County Library
Taylorsville, NC