Here’s an appropriate reference question for the Independence Day weekend:
One quirk about living in New England is that many communities got their names from olde England. As such, about once a month my Chelmsford Library is contacted by someone who mistakes us for the library in Chelmsford, Essex, UK*.
To wit:
To: askus /at/ mvlc.org
Sent: Friday, June 26, 2009 6:52 AM
Subject: Thanks!
On Tuesday I visited Chelmsford with the aim of exploring the surrounding countryside and history. Unfortunately there was no easily found visitor center, or indeed a map with a “you are here” spot on it.
Fortunately I found the public library, and given some wonderful suggestions and a town map. I promptly forgot the name of the young lady working at the help desk who provided all this information, but please thank her very much and possibly consider a supplementary income for her as a town ambassador?
I had one of the nicest afternoons of English countryside I have ever experienced and it would have not happened without her enthusiasm and knowledge.
Once again, thanks a million. I more future visitors to your town have a great day like I did. Cheers!
A very nice message, but the “English countryside” phrase indicated he contacted the wrong Chelmsford Library.
Whenever this happens, I reply to the person saying that while we’re always happy to help however we can, they’re probably better off contacting the other ChelmsfordLibrary. I also included a note encouraging him to forward his message to them, because feedback like this is important to libraries.
Shortly thereafter, I got this message back:
To: askus /at/ mvlc.org
Sent: Friday, June 26, 2009 11:17 AM
Subject: RE: Thanks!
Ah! You librarians are a special breed. Thanks for your googling, forgive my ignorance and have a wonderful day. To think that us Antipodeans love to poke fun at a perceived American lack of geographical knowledge. And I email the wrong continent. If you’re ever in London Brian, have lunch on me.
It’s nice that after 200+ years, we in the colonies are getting the recognition we deserve.
But best of all, he included a link to the restaurant he owns in London. I removed it here for privacy reasons, but that’s definitely more than enough incentive to hop across the pond.
The rewards of being a librarian are boundless. I’m telling you, fortune and glory.
*We even once got an email from someone in Mackay, Queensland, Australia, because our branch is named the Anna C. MacKay Library.
This week’s reference question is one of my own. I use Bloglines to read rss feeds, and a couple weeks ago they changed their interface.
I didn’t like the changes, so I used their Contact Form to express this and ask if there was an option to change it back. This was two weeks ago, and I still haven’t gotten a reply.
Then it occurred to me that perhaps Bloglines used Twitter, and maybe I could ask them that way. I found an @bloglines user, but even though he’s using the Bloglines logo, he indicates it’s not an official Bloglines account.
I asked him my question anyway (noticing he was fielding the exact same question a lot lately), and got a reply in 5 hours. And best of all, his suggestion worked perfectly, and now I’m back to using Bloglines happily, the way that suits me best.
But this experience got me thinking. It’s easy for organizations to let email messages slide, because only that one person knows they sent it in. But Twitter is public, and if someone is questioning or complaining, ignoring it won’t make it go away.
Unofficial or not, @bloglines did exactly what I would have expected an organization to do - respond quickly and helpfully.
This is what librarians do, and it reminded me of Kate’s post about their library suggestion box. I like that she’s publicly displaying suggestions and answers, because in this case, one-to-many communication seems better than one-to-one.
So I thought, why not encourage patrons to use Twitter as a suggestion box? Being public, the library has to address patrons’ concerns, but it also means all patrons can benefit from the answer, rather than just one.
I know a public forum isn’t appropriate for every issue, and anonymity can be necessary, so I think traditional suggestion boxes (whether physical or online form) are still useful. But I bet there are some libraries already doing this very thing. I know I came late to Twitter, but it really is turning out to be a very useful tool after all.
This week’s question itself isn’t very exciting, but it does have two interesting features:
a useful reference tool
an example of a patron being absolutely positive about something, and still being wrong
When I got into work one morning, there was a note from the previous night’s staff. It said a patron came in just before closing, and since they didn’t have time to research her question, could I please do it and call the patron.
No problem. The patron had an exact quote (three sentences long!) from an April 2006 issue of USA Today, and wanted to read the entire article. The note also said the patron was absolutely sure the quotation was correct.
We don’t have USA Today in print back to 2006, so we rely on databases for this type of research. And I can never remember which databases index which journals and newspapers, so I reply on the Boston Public Library’s e-Journals By Title search*.
It told me which database(s) had USA Today as full-text for 2006, so I logged into that database through my library’s website (so our stats get credited for the use). In this case, it was Gale’s General Reference Center, and used their advanced search to narrow to the publication and timeframe.
I searched for a couple of the keywords in the quote, and got zero hits. I tried a few different keywords, and got zero hits. I tried the most general keyword in the quote, and got three articles having nothing to do with that quotation.
Hmm.
So I kept the timeframe but removed the publication limitation, re-ran the search for the first set of keywords, and this time it found four articles - none of them from USA Today, but all of them relevant to the quotation.
I called the patron and explained that I couldn’t find the quote in USA Today, but I did find articles in other newspapers that had to do with that same topic. She insisted that she had the quote exactly right.
I tried to diplomatically say that I wasn’t disputing she had the quote right, but just that I couldn’t find it. Perhaps, I suggested, it was printed in part of the newspaper that isn’t indexed in the database, such as the Letters to the Editor or a supplement. The patron considers this, then said,
Oh, that could be. [pause] Or, you know, maybe I read that one in the The New York Times. I bet that’s why I wrote “NYT” after it - I wondered what that meant.
One of the articles I found was from The New York Times. Not that it really matters - in fact, the patron got four articles instead of one, so she was happy. And the e-Journals By Title from BPL led me right to the database I needed, so I was happy.
So yay for efficiency, and yay for exceeding the patron’s expectation.
*in case you missed it, this was the useful reference tool - really, I love this search
In my library, the reference area is downstairs. This is also where most of the computers are, as well as our quiet study room.
Since the library’s main entrance is upstairs, many patrons go to the circulation desk first, and then are sent downstairs with their question. I don’t know this to be true, but I suspect the circ staff gets malicious pleasure from some of the patrons they send down.
To wit: A woman carrying a few books, a stack of library CDs, and a portable CD player walks down the steps and comes to the desk…
Patron: The people upstairs said you could show me where a quiet room is? Me: Sure, it’s right down here. But it’s not completely quiet - if someone is being loud outside the room you might hear them, but let me know and I’ll ask them to be quiet. Patron: Oh, I’m not worried about that, but I didn’t want anyone bothered by me. Me: …oh? Patron: I want to practice singing opera, and I thought they said your quiet room was sound proof.
I waited for her to crack a smile, but she didn’t - she was dead serious.
When I hemmed and hawed about the singing, she decided to just use a computer instead. She was listening to her Discman while using the computer, and after a few minutes started humming along with the music. There were only a couple patrons using computers nearby, and none of them seemed bothered so I let it go.
I feel bad whenever we can’t accommodate someone’s request, but I guess library patrons are just far more creative than library building designers.
In this funny video, replace “dad” with “library patron” and it’s a reference question many librarians know all too well. At least, for the first third of the video - after that, it gets kind of weird and definitely violates the appropriate library behavior policy.
Here’s an appropriate reference question for the Independence Day weekend:
