#PLA12 Revitalizing Reference Services

Presenters were from the Arlington Heights (IL) Library and the Ann Arbor (MI) District Library.

Passive reference, of librarians sitting at a big desk waiting to be asked questions, is pretty much over. However, even though capital-R Reference is dying, lowercase-r reference is still a core library service. Difference is Reference desk, Reference collection, Reference staff, vs. referring people to the information, services, and skills they're looking for.

Where reference service should be going: Niche Reference
Use the reference desk only for in-person reference - keep all calls, email, and chat reference in the back room. This will improve service to both types of reference, because one person isn't trying to balance everything at once.

Identify needs in your community and address them

• have a "start your job search here" desk
• get a grant from the Rotary club to bring in professional resume reviewers
• put an add in the job classifieds to "get job search help at your library" (I came up with this, but I'm not sure if I like it)

Have staff be specialists, not generalists

• reach out to the business community to help them get started or get better
• hold one-on-one or group classes on research topics
• [me again: this might work for large libraries, but does not scale down well]

Focus on community interest

• what does your community have/want that people are interested in?
• create something like, "What's the history of your house?" and let patrons provide the content - this is something that can be built on in the future
• run a "question of the week" in the local paper - and ask for questions
• create a local wiki (like Daviswiki) and don't "own" it - let other people add content
• treat social media as a conversation starter, not one-way announcement stream. ie, on Facebook have a "stump the librarian" day and solicit questions (like Skokie, IL)

Focus on programming

• whatever's interesting: job search skills, "What is it like to be a..." series (town manager, police officer, doctor, etc), urban agriculture, etc
• Business Bytes: how to use social media to connect with customers, how to use Google Places, Yelp, Foursquare, etc
• ideas: Computers 101 (basics), Working Life (job skills), Digital Life (beyond 101, and online), Creative Life (painting, video editing), Informed Life (search and finding skills)

Libraries should be like kitchens, not grocery stores: focus on getting patrons to come in and discover and interact, not just grab stuff off the shelves and go.

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#PLA12 Secret Shopping in a Library

Presenter was a branch manager in the DC public library system. He was given six weeks in May-June to pull together a secret shopper program and run it over the course of six weeks during June-July.

Goals of secret shopping

• evaluate patron experience, for different types of patrons (using different types of shoppers)
• evaluate how well staff was trained on a particular product or service
• evaluate library's space, traffic flow, signage, etc
• evaluate collection and merchandising
• just get fresh eyes on the library

However: A Goals Caveat

• are you doing this to really find out something you don't already know?
• are you doing this to find proof of something you already believe to be the case?
• if problems are identified, are you in any position (financially, staffing, politically), to do anything about it?

DC used volunteers (teens, adult volunteers, and Friends of the Library), and developed their own tools; retail secret shopping ~$25-$35/shopping trip (~1 hour). Good to use non-librarians, so they don't already know the jargon (but nice to partner with other libraries because they won't be recognized by staff and each library benefits).

One great resource for them is ALA Publication's Assessing Service Quality. The shopper questionnaire [pdf] they created was all yes/no question (no "rate 1-5" scales, so as to be less subjective), and they had three specific uses cases:

1. Ask staff help in finding a book on [ancient Egypt, trucks, other options given] for a seven year old [son, daughter, younger sibling, nephew - whatever fit the shopper's age]
2. Ask staff help in finding a good book to read
3. Ask staff help in creating a resume on the computer

Also included was calling in to ask for directions, impression of outside of library, parking lot, landscaping, etc.

Results were sort of disappointing: not enough shopping results to really have any kind of scientific impact. They did learn that 50% of patrons aren't greeted when they enter the library, and often there are no paper towels in the bathrooms.

Staff were all informed of the shopping beforehand, but only the timeframe - they didn't know exactly when or where. Afterward, a summary of the results were shared with all staff, too. Shoppers were not trying to connect individual staff with actions or experience - this was not designed to be a punitive exercise. There was no pushback from staff on the idea, and managers felt that six weeks was long enough so staff couldn't "fake it" the entire time. They never considered not telling staff, because they didn't want it to appear like a spying or "gotcha" program.

Was it worth it?
Not really - they just didn't get enough data to justify the amount of time that went into it. But it was a good exercise for managers to think about it. And they have lots of groundwork done, so it will be much better next time.

Other ideas presented as possibilities:

• do "exit interviews" with patrons as they leave the library, to get their immediate reaction
• do focus group of volunteers afterward, to see how they felt about it (and get them talking to each other)
• do website/catalog usability check - informal, 10-20 patrons in a lab, 15 questions/tasks (such as, what is the director's name and email?), maybe 2 hours on a Saturday morning, and give them a gift card for participating (use Steve Krug's books as guides)
• have shoppers ask for things they should not be able to get
• use app isecretshop, because people typing on a phone/ipad is less obvious than people walking around with clipboards
• do community polling outside the library, to find out why "unpatrons" don't use the library in the first place

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#PLA12 Chat Reference Discussion (OCLC QuestionPoint User Group)

Integrating chat into your website

You put your info desk in the middle of your physical library, so put the chat reference link central to your website.

Placement = point of service, so put it everywhere, and be consistent (catalog, website, not just handouts and flyers)

Feb 2012 = 619 sessions (at Arlington Heights (IL) Library)

• Homepage: 135
• User account signup page: 133
• Catalog pages: 124
• These three pages are 63% of the total

Placement tips

• Top-right or top-left, make sure it's above the fold
• Talk to vendors: some will let you put chat widgets inside the databases
• Put it on other community websites (local newspaper, Town Hall, social service agencies, etc)

Use a promotion to boost usage and introduce the service to patrons

"Win a Nook" promotion at Anne Arundel County (MD) Public Library

• Promotion lasted one week, which was plenty long (especially for staff who had to keep promoting it)
• Pass out bookmarks, pins/badges, and flyers to tell people how to get to the chat
• This told patrons to mention the contest when they started their chat session, so they got entered to win the Nook)
• Promotion focused on staff/patron interaction, so patron had to also mention staff person's name (staff person could then with a Nook also)
• Results: 436 people tried chat that week - 632% increase; 899 sessions for the entire month - a 162% increase over previous year
• Lessons learned: easy promotion; chat sessions increased; public "got" the service by trying it out; people love winning free stuff
• Contact Betty Morganstern ([email protected]) for more details

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#PLA12 NewsBank Database Usage Study

NewsBank has been conducting a study with 100+ libraries of various sizes, to look closely at how library databases are used. Here are my notes on the presentation, and the short discussion afterward.

• As daily newspaper shrink (in page count), archiving shrinks as well (many newspapers are posting more to their websites than they put in print, and they are not archiving that content)
• The trend of investment is going to "first-to-web" systems model, mobile and social network integration, and paywalls and metering systems
• Library databases appear to be ~80% remote usage
• Majority of use is for older content, not current news - 80% of articles accessed are more than 90 days old. Of that 80%:
  • 18% = 1-4 years old
  • 32% = 5-9 years old
  • 50% = >10 years old
• Majority of searches are for local news: people names and local topics (political issues, crime, businesses, development of schools, etc)

As a bonus, the local NewsBank rep explained how to properly order a Philly cheesesteak:

1. Specify the quantity you want
2. Specify your cheese:
   • Wiz = cheese wiz
   • American = American cheese
   • provi = provolone
3. Specify fried onions or no:
   • Wid = with onions
   • Widout = without onions

So, an order for one cheesesteak with cheese wiz and onions would be:

One - wiz - wid

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Reference Question of the Week – 3/4/12

This was the perfect question to research on a slow Friday afternoon:

How high is eye level?

It turns out, a patron, who was definitely on the short side, wanted to hang a piece of art. However, knowing that her "eye level" was below average, she wanted to know if there was some "golden mean" eye level that would put the art at a pleasing height, no matter how tall the viewer was.

I wasn't entirely sure how to approach this one. Actually, my first thought was to check the Statistical Abstract of the United States just to see if it would give the average height of the citizenry, but I didn't think it gave physical statistics (I checked anyway, and no, it doesn't).

I figured an open web search for phrases like "how high is eye level" would produce all sorts of opinions, and it did. Then we tried a few searches specifically for "how to hang artwork" and found a few other opinions.

The patron seemed uncomfortable with the range of answers - they were all close, but not precise. It seemed like she wanted a single answer, and a reason why that was the answer.

So, we decided to go back to the "average height of a person" approach. A search for average height of a person lead to a Wikipedia article for human height. The section on US citizens cited a Centers for Disease Control report [pdf], which gave me the idea to see if the data was on their website.

A search for average height site:cdc.gov did indeed lead to a CDC page of average body measurements (which was also the source for the report cited by Wikipedia).

Now it was just some quick math:

So based on the data and our math, average eye level for Americans over 20 is 63.1 inches. She seemed very pleased with this answer - it seemed to me just as arbitrary as the rest we found, but at least our arbitrary figure was backed up by research and math. Regardless, I think that was exactly what she wanted, and she thanked me and left.

This was fun, and I can't help but think she will repeatedly recount this story any time someone comments on the artwork in her house.

*The average person is Satan!

**This was converted using Wolfram|Alpha and the Excel formula =INT(A1) & " ft " & TEXT(MOD(A1,1)*12, "# ??/16 ""in"""). I did this on my own after the fact - the patron though was happy with "5 foot 3 inches, and a little more," to account for the .1 - besides, the 3.5 inches down to eye level was a rough estimation anyway.

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Online Newsstand Makes Databases Fun

Update 3/30/12:
Library Journal published an article on the project, EBSCO's objection, and the process of working towards a resolution.

Update 3/20/12:
Good news: EBSCO and Steve have been in contact, and they are currently exploring the possibility of developing a service comparable to the Online Newsstand that would be acceptable to publishers.

Update 3/12/12:
EBSCO contacted Steve and asked him to shut down the Online Newsstand project. They said they had been contacted by a publisher who had concerns, and EBSCO cited the Online Newsstand violating their license agreements.

I'm hoping this is a temporary "let's meet and work this out" kind of deal, and not a "we don't want anyone doing something better than us" situation. After all, EBSCO isn't losing any money (and Steve isn't making money) - if anything, EBSCO and their publishers only benefit from increased database usage, because higher stats make libraries more inclined to renew their database contracts. Not to mention that EBSCO gives out awards to libraries for doing exactly this kind of innovative project (I won one):

Steve has contacted EBSCO to try to get Online Newsstand back online. If you're so inclined, you can contact EBSCO to let them know what you think:

• Tim Collins, CEO: [email protected]
• Mark Herrick, Senior Vice President of Business Development: [email protected]
• Ed Roche, Vice President of Field Sales, APK: [email protected]
• Emily Hayden: Senior Director of Customer Success, [email protected]
• Melissa D'Amato, Vice President of Publisher Relations: [email protected]

Only EBSCO has demanded Online Newsstand be taken down, but to be on the safe side until this is resolved, Steve has also brought down the Gale version as well. What an incredibly unfortunate and unnecessary state of affairs.

Original Post:
Do you wish the great content in your databases was easier to access and more engaging for patrons? Sure, we all do. And now it can be, with the Online Newsstand.

Steve Butzel of the Portsmouth (NH) Public Library developed the Online Newsstand Project to promote some of the great content libraries are already paying for - just by making that content more visible to patrons. Instead of having to go into MasterFILE or Expanded Academic ASAP, patrons can browse their favorite magazines on, well, an online newsstand, right on the library's website. It looks like this:

Pretty neat, huh?

Patrons don't need to know what a database is, or how to use one - they just click the magazine and article they want to read, log in with their library card number, and they're in! Almost as easy as reading an actual magazine.

And the second best thing about this (the first best is how awesome it looks) is that it's free for libraries to use.

Here's how it works: the Online Newsstand doesn't replace databases - it's just another (prettier) way to access their content. Steve compiles a list of the top articles of each magazine issue, along with the direct link to that article in the database. That way, the Online Newsstand can easily display the table of contents for a magazine, which eliminates all the searching and drilling down into publications in databases.

Check it out at the Portsmouth Library, on my library's website, and also on our mobile website (which is great for patrons on the go).

Updating the table of contents for each issue in the Online Newsstand would have been a monumental task. But it occurred to Steve that, since so many libraries are paying for the exact same content in the exact same databases, a bunch of libraries working together could make light work of it.

So, instead of libraries paying to use the Online Newsstand, participating libraries "adopt" a magazine, and they are then responsible for adding the new article titles and links to the Newsstand whenever a new issue is published. The interface Steve created makes this extremely easy - I do The Economist (a weekly magazine) and Outdoor Life (a monthly), and it takes me about ten minutes per issue - tops.

I love the approach of libraries working together. My ten minutes' labor a week benefits other libraries, and also gives my patrons access to the work done by other librarians. This is the true spirit of cooperation that is so emblematic of libraries.

The Online Newsstand is available both for EBSCO and Gale customers. And as more libraries get involved in the project, more and more magazine titles will be added. And again, this doesn't change or affect your relationship with database vendors - it just improves the patron experience of using the resources we're already paying for.

If you're interested (and I hope you are), contact Steve Butzel at [email protected]. And of course I'm happy to talk about how it works in Chelmsford, too.

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