May 1st, 2007 Brian Herzog
We've just taken a long-awaited step at my library - we're selling flash drives at the Reference desk.
When I say "long-awaited," I'm probably just referring to myself. We've sold 3.5" floppies and CDs at the desk for a few years, but they each have their problems. 3.5" disks seem to be unstable (easily damaged by temperature, abuse, or ejecting before the light turns off) - to the point where I had to develop a handout for recovering lost data. And CDs have the problem of read/write access, being difficult to use (another handout), and having different save formats not being readable by all computers.
Flash drives don't suffer from any of those problems. The only thing that had been keeping us from offering them at the reference desk was price. Spending $1 on a disk is one thing, but I couldn't see a patron being willing to spend $50 on an impulse buy at the library. I had been looking for cheaper flash drives on various websites, but even with rebates, the cheapest I could find was about $10 - still too expensive.
So I was happy when I finally found some for under $5. I don't really like the big box stores, as I feel their business practices are inherently flawed, but I caved in this case. A nearby Target store has for sale Memorex 32MB flash drives for $4.99 (and this is even in tax-free New Hampshire).
I bought 15 of them, as that seemed like a good number - not a huge investment, but enough to keep us going for awhile. I am hoping to wean patrons from the 3.5" disks and get them using flash drives as soon as possible. It'll mean more secure data storage for them, and less headaches for the desk staff in terms of us not having to tell people "sorry, but the file you've been working on for two weeks is completely gone."
So far, though, there's been no takers. People still want to spend just $1 and take their chances, rather than spending the $5 for 28 times more storage space. But I've decided to not replenish our 3.5" supply when they're gone - we'll only sell flash drives. I wonder how that'll go over.
disk, disks, flash drive, flash drives, libraries, library, public libraries, public library, selling disks
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April 28th, 2007 Brian Herzog
A post this week to the Maine Libraries listserv highlighted Project Public Spaces, and their recent newsletter - it was all about libraries.
Mainly, the theme is this: libraries are natural community gathering spaces, and we should embrace and emphasize this. If we want to play an important role in our communities, we should act accordingly.
A partial table of contents is below, and the articles are really worth reading to get ideas:
community, community place, community space, community spaces, libraries, libraries as place, libraries matter, library, pps, project for public space, project for public spaces, public libraries, public library, sense of place
Tags: Community, community place, community space, community spaces, libraries, libraries as place, libraries matter, Library, Marketing, pps, project for public space, project for public spaces, public libraries, public library, sense of place
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April 28th, 2007 Brian Herzog
This is only marginally a reference question, but I thought it was funny. And as with most things in my life, it requires a bit of a setup...
Our internet connection went down on a recent Friday at 5pm. On Saturday, since our Assistant Director in charge of computery stuff was on vacation for the week, I called comcast.
Eventually I spoke with a very nice tech support person. He had me check stuff and try things, none of which worked. He concluded the problem was on their end, and would send out a service guy. But, since the next day was Sunday, and the Monday was a holiday, it was unlikely the guy would get there before Tuesday.
Of course, we were open full regular hours Saturday and Sunday. Very disappointed patrons kept coming to the desk to ask what the problem was, and when it would be fixed. People even repeatedly called throughout each day, asking if "we had turned the internet back on yet."
But one patron stood out from the crowd. He's a high-functioning special needs guy who comes in pretty regularly. We don't require signups to use the public computers, but he always comes to the desk and asks permission anyway. When I told him Saturday that internet access was unavailable, he stood and thought for a moment.
He then asked where the computer books were, and I showed him. He looked at the shelf for awhile, selected one book, and then sat for about an hour reading it. Later he came up to the desk, looking kind of deflated, and holding the book out to me.
It was The Internet for Dummies, and he said "I thought maybe I could fix your internet, but this book doesn't tell me how."
I thanked him, and told him it was okay, because we had someone on their way. That made him felt better, and he said he come back in a couple days.
He was the only patron who didn't first think how their day was ruined because the library was keeping the internet from them. It took me be surprise because, as a librarian, I am continually asking what the library can do for the patron, and not what the patron can do for the library. This was a refreshing and unexpected reversal.
internet, internet access, internet down, libraries, library, public libraries, public library
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April 26th, 2007 Brian Herzog
The photo here is a little sign taped to the cash register at a Dunkin Donuts in Chelmsford, MA. It is positioned so that the cashier will see it and remember those simple rules to good customer service.
As I waited for my bacon-and-egg on a plain bagel (no cheese), I pondered these customer service guidelines. They seemed to fit the library world, too - "Listen" and "Solve," definitely, and "Thank" should be part of every interaction.
But "Apologize;" this one struck me as odd. I mean, yes, quite a few of my daily patron interactions involve apologizing - "I'm sorry, the book you want it check out," "I'm sorry, all of the computers are being used right now," "I'm sorry, I don't know why our catalog does that," etc...
Should it be an indicator that something is wrong when you prepare to apologize or compensate for shortcomings of your work environment? If these are known problems, doesn't it make more sense to look for solutions? In the case of unavailable books, of course I always ask if the patron would like to request it from another library.
But when it comes to the catalog, I am sick of apologizing for it. That soapbox is so crowded that there's little new I can add - except to say that people in my library have started looking very seriously at Evergreen. And best of all, rather than being skeptical about open source, they're excited about the possibilities.
It'll be a long process before we switch to a different catalog search interface, but the day I can stop apologizing for our catalog will be a happy day. And if the interface is user-friendly enough and patrons can easily request checked-out books themselves, then maybe we can cross "Apologize" off of the little "L.A.S.T." lists entirely.
apologizing, customer service, evergreen, libraries, library, public libraries, public library
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April 20th, 2007 Brian Herzog
I read a post on LISNews today about a "book bar" trend that is starting in the UK. Lichen had brought up this idea before, and I still like it - make libraries more inviting in general, rather than just hoping people like what we have where we have it how we have it.
My library is having a "Coffeehouse @ the Library" series as part of our larger One Book Chelmsford program, and the response has been great. The first one was well attended (see photos), and patrons are looking forward to the second (which is tonight, so come if you can!).
And I'm hoping that if we can demonstrate desire and attendance among patrons, then this can be a regular program.
book bar, coffee house, coffeehouse, entertainment, libraries, library, live performer, public libraries, public library
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April 19th, 2007 Brian Herzog
The last session of the day was called "Tech Freebies & Program Ideas," given by people from different libraries covering successes they've had with technology-related programs in their libraries.
The Princeton (NJ) Public Library puts a tremendous amount of resources into their Technology Training (which is a better phrase than "computer classes"). Their classes include both staff and patrons, and cover a varied of topics: Photoshop/GIMP, Blogger/Wordpress, Bloglines/Google Reader, social bookmarking, creating & hosting podcasts, digital scrapbooking, and more.
They also listed a few ways to keep up with emerging technologies (PC Magazine's Top 101 websites, SEOmoz's Web 2.0 awards, Filehippo, and Time's 50 Coolest websites), and some of the more interesting online tools:
After them, a team from another library showed a mobile animation setup they used (a Mac laptop, camera, and portable greenscreen designed to let teens create and edit their own stop-animation videos. Which was neat and interesting (actually, quite amazing), but since this was geared towards Macs, and teens, and it was the last session of the day, I wasn't paying as much attention as I should have been.
AjaxWrite, cil 2007, cil2007, Cozi Central, eCalendar, EveryStockPhoto, flickr, GIMP, Google Calendar, Google Docs, libraries, library, LogMeIn, OneTrueMedia, online Text editors, princeton public library, public libraries, public library, TaDaLists, Tech Freebies & Program Ideas, Text editors
Tags: AjaxWrite, cil 2007, cil2007, Conferences, Cozi Central, eCalendar, EveryStockPhoto, flickr, GIMP, Google Calendar, Google Docs, libraries, Library, LogMeIn, OneTrueMedia, online Text editors, princeton public library, public libraries, public library, Resources, TaDaLists, Tech Freebies & Program Ideas, Technology, Text editors
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