And then, because it’s easier to change your environment than your behavior, i set out to make sure that i didn’t just declare these focus areas, but that i made sure I could stick to them. I started out by tweaking my google calendars. I’m a very visual person so in order to tell if i’m spending my time more in one area than another, each focus got a color and I made sure the calendars reflected this. But i realized that I needed go one step further – I don’t just spend my time getting things done or meeting with people (stuff that gets scheduled), I also spend my time communicating about all those items and I’d want to make sure email was set up in a similar way, organized around my five focuses.

Here’s where I realized the problem of consistent design across products and just how much it can throw someone off if they’re expecting one thing and getting another. Let’s start with format.

gcal makes the entire calendar in the cal list and each event in that calendar whatever color you’ve specified, very pretty and easy to figure out:

Gmail isn’t as pretty. Check out what similar category colors look like in gmail:

The other interesting thing is that the colors you have available to you aren’t even the same! Sure, gmail and gcal are different products, but they’re still Google products and you’d think there’d be some consistency with the little things like this (especially after their massive look & feel overhaul). See what the colors look like in gcal:

and gmail:

I’m not going to discuss google reader (whose new look & feel doesn’t even render correctly in safari) and google docs who both don’t have the ability to add colors to categories at all.

Why is it so important to have a consistent design & features across your interfaces? It makes your product easier to manage, use, and customize. Most importantly, it limits customer pain when they’re trying to figure out how to do things, where to go, or if they’re even still dealing with you (instead of having gone to an outside org or product). With libraries, we know the whole “oh this is an EBSCO product so I know what it will look like and what features I’ll have available to me.” But do you give two thoughts to how your library website and your library catalog integrate (or, more usually, don’t)?

The Darien library website has a consistent feel even into their catalog because they’re not using their OPAC’s interface for customers. But take a look at St. Mary’s County Library in Maryland and now their catalog. In the middle, I think The Free Library of Philadelphia did a good job at integrating a stand-alone OPAC interface with their regular website look & feel (check it out).

So while i figure out what i’m going to do with my organization in gmail and my other applications, how are you making sure you have a consistent look & feel in your organizations?

Ps – this doesn’t just apply to your online interfaces… do you have tax forms by the door in Branch A and behind the reference desk in Branch B? Is renewing a book super simple online and really complicated in the branch (or vise versa)? Just sayin’

possibly related posts:

1. Internet Desintation
2. How do you stay organized?

add an extra level of fun if you’re like me and you have more than one library’s card and look up those books in each of those other library catalogs (i have dreams of a statewide catalog that will let me search at once the libraries i have access to but that’s another post).

Most of the time i find one of my libraries has the item i want but sometimes they don’t. when this happens, my ILL department gets a phone call or a visit (their office is right next to mine). more often than not, though, the item I want is “too new” and isn’t being lended.

Last week, however, my library surprised me in the best way. I saw that one particular item i wanted wasn’t owned by ANY public library in Maryland. On a whim, i submitted a “purchase request” for the item and THE NEXT DAY, i had received an email back saying they’d reviewed their holdings and needs and determined that they’ll be purchasing the book. Oh, and we’ve put it on hold for you so when it comes in you’ve got first dibs.

That was October 26th. On November 10th I got an email saying it was ready for pickup and this morning I was able to get in and grab it. All new and shiny and just for me.

There are a lot of things that libraries do – specifically mine – that I would do differently if it were my choice but this is one of those wonderful moments of customer service excellence where i really felt valued as a customer. I was listened to, my requests acknowledged and then and followed up with or acted upon quickly.

Not every library has the budget or collection development policies that allow them to purchase whatever their communities want but it’s these moments of listening to your customers that will set you aside.

When i say listening i’m not talking about that in-one-ear-out-the-other business that placates no one. I mean active listening – making sure the person whom you are listening to understands you’ve heard them (there’s the acknowledgement piece) and then now that you’ve heard what they have to say, it’s on your plate – some action is needed – evaluate that policy, form a team to look at a new service model, add their comment to the list that’s going to be reviewed next month, or put that purchase request in the queue.

But it’s not enough to listen to your community when it speaks to you – because they may not always seek you out for a conversation or submit a comment card – you also have to hear what they aren’t saying…

Case in point: Karen Hyman spoke at the Tri-County Summit in Western Maryland on Friday on Great Libraries. An example of a library doing great things included a NJ library where there were couches upon which a group of older gentlemen used to sit and complain about the noise from the children at the nearby circulation desk. You might say the gentlemen should get over it or that the children should be quieter but the library took the couches and moved them to a quiet corner of the library and put a few chairs in place of where the couches were. The gentleman’s group moved and are happy now! No one asked them to move the couches, but the library paid attention to their community, or parts of their community, and made a change for the better.

Paying attention to and making changes for your community also includes your internal community and not just your end-users. In 2008 and again in 2010, I did a series of “Listening Tours” for AskUsNow! partner institutions. They were meetings with myself and whatever liaison or staff wanted to attend. The meetings had no agenda and I had no assumptions. I went in, kept quiet, and listened.  A lot of good came out of those sessions – some of them turned into mini-refresher trainings, others into bitch sessions that ended up solving some problems, and allowing librarians to get things off their chest. Regardless of the outcome, everyone had a chance to be heard which was overwhelmingly appreciated. They were heard, and I listened. And then acted. and our service and morale were better for it.

What is your community saying? Are you paying attention? Are you asking? And most importantly, are you acting?

possibly related posts:

1. Get over it: “Pay for blog feeds? yuck!”
2. Xtreme Customer Service or TTWWADI must die.

This morning, Netflix subscribers got an email. Here it is in its entirety, i’ll meet you at the other end of it:

Dear Julie,

I messed up. I owe you an explanation.

It is clear from the feedback over the past two months that many members felt we lacked respect and humility in the way we announced the separation of DVD and streaming and the price changes. That was certainly not our intent, and I offer my sincere apology. Let me explain what we are doing.

For the past five years, my greatest fear at Netflix has been that we wouldn’t make the leap from success in DVDs to success in streaming. Most companies that are great at something – like AOL dialup or Borders bookstores – do not become great at new things people want (streaming for us). So we moved quickly into streaming, but I should have personally given you a full explanation of why we are splitting the services and thereby increasing prices. It wouldn’t have changed the price increase, but it would have been the right thing to do.

So here is what we are doing and why.

Many members love our DVD service, as I do, because nearly every movie ever made is published on DVD. DVD is a great option for those who want the huge and comprehensive selection of movies.

I also love our streaming service because it is integrated into my TV, and I can watch anytime I want. The benefits of our streaming service are really quite different from the benefits of DVD by mail. We need to focus on rapid improvement as streaming technology and the market evolves, without maintaining compatibility with our DVD by mail service.

So we realized that streaming and DVD by mail are really becoming two different businesses, with very different cost structures, that need to be marketed differently, and we need to let each grow and operate independently.

It’s hard to write this after over 10 years of mailing DVDs with pride, but we think it is necessary: In a few weeks, we will rename our DVD by mail service to “Qwikster”. We chose the name Qwikster because it refers to quick delivery. We will keep the name “Netflix” for streaming.

Qwikster will be the same website and DVD service that everyone is used to. It is just a new name, and DVD members will go to qwikster.com to access their DVD queues and choose movies. One improvement we will make at launch is to add a video games upgrade option, similar to our upgrade option for Blu-ray, for those who want to rent Wii, PS3 and Xbox 360 games. Members have been asking for video games for many years, but now that DVD by mail has its own team, we are finally getting it done. Other improvements will follow. A negative of the renaming and separation is that the Qwikster.com and Netflix.com websites will not be integrated.

There are no pricing changes (we’re done with that!). If you subscribe to both services you will have two entries on your credit card statement, one for Qwikster and one for Netflix. The total will be the same as your current charges. We will let you know in a few weeks when the Qwikster.com website is up and ready.

For me the Netflix red envelope has always been a source of joy. The new envelope is still that lovely red, but now it will have a Qwikster logo. I know that logo will grow on me over time, but still, it is hard. I imagine it will be similar for many of you.

I want to acknowledge and thank you for sticking with us, and to apologize again to those members, both current and former, who felt we treated them thoughtlessly.

Both the Qwikster and Netflix teams will work hard to regain your trust. We know it will not be overnight. Actions speak louder than words. But words help people to understand actions.

Respectfully yours,

-Reed Hastings, Co-Founder and CEO, Netflix

p.s. I have a slightly longer explanation along with a video posted on our blog, where you can also post comments.

I wasn’t annoyed before (maybe i just wasn’t paying attention?), nor did I think I was owed an apology. But now, having gotten both an apology and an explanation, i’m a little peeved. Why? because of this: “the Qwikster.com and Netflix.com websites will not be integrated.” Which means I will have to maintain two queues of movies- which is the exact opposite of the simplicity I was describing life suddenly had in my last post.

Having just canceled our TV service, Netflix was/is going to pick up the slack when we really did just want to veg in front of the screen. I had always enjoyed when movies on my DVD queue were suddenly available for streaming- it allowed me to watch it right then AND remove it from my ever-growing and very-not-simple DVD queue.

I’m not sure why this decision was made – to forgo simplicity and the wonder that is a single, integrated interface in order to accomplish this maneuver- but it’s not what I would have chosen. That said, we’ll be sticking with Netflix (and/or Qwikster) until we figure out what the deal is and how it’s going to function in our lives.

I file this move under “pain inducing” instead of “pain reduction.” It’s our job – when we’re in a service professor or providing a service to customers (like Netflix)- that we look at our services and products and make decisions based on LOWERING the amount of pain a customer has to go through to do things. Five clicks before they can log in and renew a book? Painful. Having to log in twice when doing two different things on the same website? Painful. It’s these moments of pain where the customer gets to make a choice – is this amount of pain worth the effort or is there an easier way (path of least resistance) to accomplish my goal? If there’s an easier way somewhere else – you’re losing business.

This serves as a moment for libraries and vendors to think about not just our interfaces and the pain we’re causing (or keeping from) our customers but also how we make decisions, handle problems, and respond when the community reacts. Are we meeting our own expectations? Our customers?

possibly related posts:

1. on form and function
2. Book lending; Netflix style

the August 2011 issue of CRM (Customer Relationship Management… that free magazine/sales pitch you can get from Information Today) talks about the research on “how consumers will contact customer service within the next two years.” While you’re not “customer service” you are Customer Service and you need to pay attention. So here- pay attention to what I think you need to read:

• 70% of consumers globally and 75% in the U.S. have used voice channels to contact customer service centers most often in the last three months. This number is expected to drop to 56% globally and 50% in the U.S.

• 40% of global consumers and 32% of U.S. consumers would prefer alternate methods of contact- including web chat, self-service, and text messaging- to phone-based customer service.

• 55% (globally), 56% (U.S.) said that in two years, they will use email regularly to reach customer service centers, compared with the 15% (13% U.S.) that use email now.

• 86% (globally), 90% (U.S.) are likely to tell friends, family or colleagues about poor customer service experiences.

• Consumers are willing to pay 20% MORE for goods and services if they come up with better service (up from 5% from a few years ago).

What does all this tell you about your customers, your library staff and services, and the relationships between the two? Here’s my take:

• You will need to stop screwing around on self-service. Also pay attention to the different ways your customers can choose to help themselves. (can they pay their fine with a credit card at the self-checkout? can they pay a fine via text or paypal online? can they place and cancel holds on their phone? etc)

• You will need to step it up on multi-mode communication choice. Can your customers reach you without navigating more than two levels on a phone tree? How’s your hold times? Can they email you with quick response? Text? IM/chat? Smoke signals? Are your tech options mobile-friendly for a range of smart and dumb phones?

Frankly i think the biggest take-away on this is that people are willing to PAY 20% MORE (that’s a 15% increase over the last few years) for better service. We’re all broke, but we’re willing to pay more money if we are going to be treated like we matter. Your library is in the people business and for the most part, we do a good job at this BUT WE HAVE ALL SORTS OF ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT.

It’s not enough for your f2f interactions to be upbeat, helpful, above-and-beyond, and delightful. Our online communications as well as our customers’ interactions with the things we have that speak to our brand (THIS INCLUDES OUR LOVELY VENDOR INTERFACES AND EXPERIENCES) have to follow suit.

So how is your library holding up? Prepared to meet your customer’s changing demand? I know you are – you just have to keep the Customer Focus.

possibly related posts:

1. AOL only loves money. (a lesson in being available)
2. IM versus Chat: What’s better for customer service?

that is to say, i got that AFTER i signed in with another account that i remembered the password for. if you clicked on “Contact AOL” a few screens prior, it makes you log in. Thanks, dudes. That’s what i can’t do and why i want to contact you in the first place.

You can click “Meet the Help Team” and see all their pretty little faces. but you can’t email any of them. You can search the help articles and “community support” but still, no contact information.

So here i am – logged in and still unable to get help or contact anyone. Unless i pay. They’re very quick to offer the “upgrade your account now” link. did i mention their FAQs and community support pages are of no assistance either. (and we know we can’t blame my inability to put together a coherent search string.)

Pro Tip: If you’re not going to support free accounts, don’t have free accounts.

So while i try to find someone to talk to at AOL to help me get into a very old account (please share if you know how to do that or contact them), i leave you with these questions to ponder for your business:

• How easy is it for someone to contact you when they need help?
• How easy is it for someone to help themselves by using an FAQ, help articles, or a community supported support area?
• What messages are you sending in how you present your information or lock down your services?
• What barriers or annoyances are there for customers who need to do certain things? Do you make them log in to site A only to have to log in again to do Thing B on Site A?

Don’t be AOL. Love all your customers equally. And for duck’s sake (yes, duck), make sure people can talk to a human if they want to.

possibly related posts:

1. ALA’s Event Planning website Or how NOT to design an interface
2. a word about doing things online (or If i can’t pay online, you’re saying you dont want your $)

over the holidays while trying to finish up a massive digitization project/present, i attempted to use my headphones in order to continue working while in the room with the family without giving away what i was going. I had only ever used the headset jack once but it had worked fine. not anymore. a few headsets ruled that it was the mac.

after backing up everything i took my macbook to the store to have them look at it. they replicated the issue and said it’d just need a new jack. okay cool. 2 days later i get a phone call to pick it up and i go in to get it. i go in and while they try to show me that the headset jack works now, things are slow to boot, load, and open. the trackpad is all wonky and it’s acting out of sorts. the tech says they’d like to keep it overnight to run some diagnostics again since it was taking it’s sweet time trying to do it then and it had just passed last night. she says she’ll be there until midnight doing repairs and i ask her (if she won’t get into trouble for doing it), if she could call me that night and let me know what the deal was. she agreed even though they don’t call people that late normally.

at 10.45pm that night i get a call. all is fixed (bad logic board) and i can pick it up in the morning. SWEET!

in the morning (today) i go before the mall opened (and learned about mom’s exercise groups who use the mall before opening hours) and the security guard lets me into the apple store (they were open for appointments). i get my mac back and turn it on to triple check it. good thing i did. it was slow to boot, load and acting wonky.

15 mins later i was walking out of the store with a new macbook. they had checked all their docs and saw that it had just cleared diagnostics again a few hours before. not understanding the problem, and in the interest of getting me back on the road with a functioning machine, they just gave me a new one and said they’d wipe my original one and send it back to apple DOA.

Poor thing. I didn’t think i was so attached to it until i had to let it go. The new machine acts just like the old one thanks to Time Machine but the keys and trackpad give it up as an impostor- we haven’t done the mileage together. i blame the legoman- he gave a persona to the otherwise faceless machine.

RIP: legoman 8/6/10-1/5/11

after determining that i was going home with a new machine, the guys at the store even spent a few minutes trying to figure out a way to salvage my decal. they may have been sadder than i that we couldn’t do it.

so that’s #1 why i ♥ apple. here’s #2 and 3:

within two days, i had two lovely experiences with apple support while trying to set up some things. important in the two phone calls is what i *didn’t* do:

1. I didn’t call them (they called me- first within 2 minutes, the second within the first 5 minutes of the scheduled appointment time window)
2. I didn’t have to navigate any inane automated phone triage (when the system called and asked if i wanted to speak to a rep, i pressed one and it rang)
3. I didn’t wait on hold. at all. (after i pressed “one” for a rep, it rang once and a rep answered)
4. I didn’t have to fight a language barrier (the reps spoke human, not tech support)
5. I didn’t have my guard up (aside from being helpful- i felt like i had just called my tech-savvy bff to help me) they were human and i didn’t feel like i had to prepare for battle. I learned from Rhonda that i had called Austin, a city she loves, and that both her and I tend to mess things up when doing things tired and late at night.)
6. i didn’t have to know what i was talking about (i did, but the guy on the 2nd call offered OPTIONS of solutions instead of just answering the question i asked instead of the question behind the words i asked (aka, can i? no.))

the two apple reps i spoke with on the phone were fantastic. helpful, human, and their tone was great – really just like i had called over my bff to help- NOT like i was calling tech support.

any anxiety i’ve had over my 5 month old macbook biting the dust without anyone knowing why is counteracted by the care and time that all the apple reps i’ve spoke with both in the store and on the phone have shown me. even the two guys at apple care who assisted me in switching the apple care from the old mac to the new one were infinitely friendly and helpful. the whole process took 6 minutes.

in my 20 years experience with microsoft products and various companies (micron, dell, etc) with their huge range of support successes and failures* and my 5 months of experience with apple (not including the year in elementary school when all the computers were macintosh’s), i am very happy with my choice to head over to apple. the dark side may have cookies but the apple side has superior products, fantastic customer service and has gained themselves one more mac-addict. my stories and their playing with the machine have already solidified my parents minds that when their laptops go, they’re going apple.

i suppose it only fair to also relay the two non-apple support stories i have that are positive- sort of:

1. at the turn of the millennium when i was heading off to college, my dad bought me a “flat screen” (HAHAHAHA) desktop for school. the micron rep had come to the house to deliver and install it. when it died immediately, micron delivered another one within a few days. I was able to start school with a new computer. i have no idea the number of times it took dad to call people to make it appear to happen so seamlessly.
2. later in life (say, 3ish years ago) my laptop hard drive died (computer #5 in my lifetime up to that point?). while it took many phone calls and many explanations to different people who’s first language wasn’t english… and who didn’t have a tech-to-english translation module, i was sent a replacement hard drive free of charge. sure, it was on the stipulation that i return the dead hd (which i still have in dumb hopes that i can recover it one day), but i’m pretty sure due to the number of phone calls i had to go through to get it, i just fell through the cracks (after being stalked)

thanks, apple, for making life a little bit smoother.

(now i just have to wait for my legoman decal so i can stop thinking of this machine as an impostor! haha)

my dead macbook, waiting to go away (in the new mac's box)

possibly related posts:

1. I’m being stalked by Dell
2. “you’re the 4th person I’ve talked to”

Here’s what i learned from Hobby Lobby based purely on their signage:

aka “only traditional Christian values are important”

Their website says they’re closed on Sundays. Okay, no biggie. Even though sunday is usually the day i randomly decide i’ve got time to fit in a project and end up needing supplies at the last minute, I can drive the 20+ mins to Joanne’s/Michaels.

However, its this sign  - the reason they’re closed Sunday’s that strikes me as strange. If they are closed on SUNDAYS and they do so to allow their employees to worship – does that mean they don’t employ any Jewish or Muslim people? Possible, i suppose, by complete accident. Hopefully not by design.

They could have just said “closed sundays.” No explanation needed.

aka “we have rules here”

they must have had a previous incident with this in one of their other locations because at the top of every aisle, on both sides, is this double-sided, fairly unwelcoming stop-sign type sign telling you to NOT remove items and to NOT climb the shelves.

Okay, i can understand they won’t want people being stupid or getting hurt (or law-suity) but its the excess of all these signs that bugs me. they’re everywhere you look!! At first i thought that these were directional signs because of their placement – high enough to see from afar and at the corner of every aisle. Not the case. and very unwelcoming.

aka “if you wander around lost, you’ll see more to buy”

I was wandering around when i first got there because i wanted to see what they had. It wasn’t until halfway through the store i realized if i had a specific item in mind, i wouldn’t be able to self-service and find it very easily – there were no overhead directional signs!

It’s the lack of signage here that speaks volumes. I ended up speaking to one of the folks on the floor and asked when they opened. When she mentioned that it was only a few days ago I said, “oh is that why there’s no overhead signage – they’re just not up yet?” “No,” she said, “Hobby Lobby doesn’t do that.”

Doesn’t do that? I haven’t asked management what their theory is on signage but perhaps they put such a premium on their sales team being able to help you, and being ever-present that you won’t ever need to read a sign even if they had them! In other words- while sometimes it takes more time, the human connection is of utmost importance. Or, they figure if you wander around lost, you’ll find more stuff you “need” and will buy.

Another sales person i spoke with mentioned that the “art” that is on the outer walls of the place, lining the whole way around the store are the “clues” to what’s in each aisle. (she did say “clues.”) It wasn’t until she said that that i noticed the “art” was anything other than just wall-decor. It indeed told you what you might find in each aisle. That is if you had insane vision and could a) see that far and b) could see through other aisles that were blocking signs other than the ones you were directly in the path of. Fail, if you ask me.

What does your signage say about you?

Not sure? If you’ve been staring at your signage so long you no longer see it, perhaps it’s time to bring in fresh eyes. Like your recent hires, or *gasp* actual customers. Ask them what your signage says about you- and be prepared to act on it if change is needed.

Take a look at all your signs, but specifically the ones that mention your cell phone policy. These are the signs that I’m always shocked they’re worded the way they are.

“NO CELL PHONES” isn’t really what you’re trying to tell people. Is it? With apps, texting, and other non-vocal (and therefore potentially non-disruptive) things you can do with a cell phone, this is NOT the sign you should be hanging.

Perhaps you meant to say:

Also on signage:

• from ugly to beautiful: a remake of library signage (the strange librarian)

possibly related posts:

1. from ugly to beautiful: a remake of library signage
2. Xtreme Customer Service or TTWWADI must die.

The focus, for whatever reason, seems to always be on the “technology” (usually perceived as disruptive) and how it’s going to put us out of business or put a lot of us out of jobs or some such other nonsense. Books- for instance, are perceived as our primary business- not just by the customers (usually non-users) but also (unfortunately) by those who work in libraries (time for you to retire yet?). When i was in library school i remember discussions about libraries versus booksellers. It was always “versus” and i never understood why since we’re not really in the same business.

And now, as people are freaking out about ebooks, i ask the same question- why?

It seems we forget that our business is not defined by our things – the modes in which our information is delivered- physical book, ebook, database, audio cd, computer, etc- our technology if you will. The library is NOT an information warehouse and calling it such removes the element that actually IS our business – the people. Calling us “information gatekeepers” also does us a disservice – enforcing that stereotype that we are better than you and only we can dole out the world’s knowledge on a need-to-know basis and only if you’re worthy. Um, no.

Libraries are in the people business and i’d like to invite everyone who is in the profession on a front lines service desk who does not agree with me to do some soul searching and perhaps find another calling. Libraries are in the people business- connecting people to people (staff to customers and customers to their communities) and people to things (information, skills, knowledge, etc); usually people to the things they need to become better people. When libraries define themselves through their community, suddenly the technology doesn’t matter. And it shouldn’t. Technology is simply a way of getting things done, of solving problems. Sure, I’ll be the first to sign up for something flashy and new just because it is such but that doesn’t mean i’m going to implement it on a system-wide basis simply because it’s “the new thing.” In fact i’m very much against technology for technology’s sake in this context. With something new and interesting, I’m going to file it away and hope i recall it later when i’m faced with a challenge it might help solve. Wordle, for instance- was fun to play with in the beginning but what the hell can i use a word cloud for? Not much… until it came time to write the final grant report and i needed a visual way of representing the year’s worth of customer comments. Bingo.

That’s a simple example but i’m hoping you get my drift. If we define ourselves by the needs of the people in our community, and the relationships we build with them, suddenly we’ve just given ourselves the flexibility to ebb and flow with whatever the world throws at us. Suddenly “omg mobile” doesn’t seem so scary.

See, we have to be limber. Not just people and libraries, but everyone. Businesses that can’t move with the waves of life suffer. Take Western Union- the president of the company in 1876 said, ”this ‘telephone’ has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication.” Missed opportunity there. And i bet he’d pass out if he could look around the world today.

We’re very good, in libraries, at letting others decide what we should be doing – waiting for others to define who we are and what business we’re in. The great thing about the future that people tend to forget is that WE CAN INVENT IT! The Future is not something that happens to us; we are something that happens to the future. Feel free to quote me on that.

Seriously though, if libraries defined their identities and purposes by their specific community’s needs and stopped worrying about what other people were doing (not in that informed, always-looking kind of way but the “i don’t know what to do, oh lets do what they’re doing” kind of way), libraries would be more embraced into their community as a whole, start to chip away at the stereotype (the stuffy one, not the sexpot one.. though that annoys me too), and be more relevant to their worlds and more flexible as technology shifts (as it tends to do).

It’s our communities that binds us together. Sure, everyone has a hugely different demographic and community base but regardless of who their community is, libraries should be building relationships with those people, asking them what they need in life, and then providing it (either directly or as a referral or partnership).

I’ll go back to my mobile example from a bit ago- Sure, mobile is the thing we need to be in right now- its not going away. the xx billion text messages sent daily is a sign that something’s up. But if your small town library serves a community of aging ESL, perhaps texting and mobile isn’t really a bandwagon you should be jumping on right yet. But if you have conversations with them – keep them up to date with the world just as you try to be as a professional (you ARE, right?) and it piques their interest – ask them what they want to do. Maybe they’ll surprise you and already all have iphones and they want to try this new augmented reality thing. Or maybe you’ll delight them when they finally learn how to retrieve a text message from their granddaughter. You never know unless you ask.

The moral of the story is this- Stop freaking out about technology. Play with it, learn it, talk to people about it, but don’t let it cause an identify crisis. Be flexible. Build relationships with your community. Ask them what they need (and then give it to them).

So- now that i’ve said all that… what do YOU think the future of libraries is? I want to hear what you have to say- comment or trackback. :-)

[oh, and for giggles, here's this post in wordle (for no good reason other than i felt like it)]

possibly related posts:

1. Foresight 2020- Scenario Planning: Learning to Think in the Future Tense
2. You are the Future of Libraries, no pressure (or Be the conversation people)

But then i saw other people’s baseball cards. I’m on the MLLI 2010 Institute Planning Committee and recently the Chair sent around 2 of the baseball cards that had been produced. Both cards, of two different people, had photos of them with customers. the people in the photos (the librarians and the customers) looked happy! they were interacting with other humans and having a good time! sure, it’s a marketing thing and you have to look happy, but you could tell it was genuine.

in one, the front of the card shows the librarian happily holding a book, explaining something to a customer who looks intrigued as she herself also touches the book. a momentary connection between two people over information. The back of the card shows her pointing to something on the computer to an off-camera customer who i imagine is also very engaged and happy.

on the back of the second card we see the other librarian having an educational playtime with adorable children who look as children should- wide eyed, joyful, and hopeful.

and then there’s me. who, at the sight of these cards, suddenly realizes what’s missing from my life- my customers. I’ve been feeling this lack of connection for a while now but seeing the difference between my photos (which i think very well encapsulates what i do and who i am as a librarian right now) and the photos of the other librarians (who get to see the public on a regular basis) really made it all hit home.

i love my job, don’t get me wrong. i love knowing that through my work and the work of the other 250+ librarians across Maryland and countless librarians across the country, that people are getting answers, getting help, saying hi, at all hours of the day. whenever the customer needs it instead of around our business hours. i love traveling as much as i do and getting my hands dirty in new technology. i love the library community i’m in that’s so involved and invested in this initiative. and i love directly helping people the few times i can a month. But my job is lonely. Sure i read the awesome glowing survey comments but i never get to see the glowing faces and thankful eyes of someone who you’ve truly helped. I can’t reach over the desk or through the computer and touch the shoulder of someone who isn’t sure if it’s going to be okay. it will be okay.

my partner in crime here at AskUsNow! has been feeling the same way and will soon be starting a supplemental job at a real live face to face reference desk at a local academic library. sure, our pockets are mostly empty in these hard times but empty hearts are felt much more. it’s hard when you only see the love in word form and then when you go out into the real world no one seems to have ever heard of your service. how can this be? we help hundreds of people a day! surely i would have run into some of them by this point!

I’ve been feeling this more than the librarians who do this in addition to their regular f2f customer work, i’m sure. For me, it was a gradual but all encompassing thing. For them, they see the stark comparison of knowing if you’re on the right track because the customer leans in or mutters “mmm” versus having to explain or describe every minute detail in order to fill in the void. But in the end, their jobs are with real physical customers. I train on interpersonal communication skills- on how to engage in “conversation” and how to keep people engaged when neither of you can see each other. But really, humans need human contact. There’s only so much text in place of a person one can take.

when it comes time to write my grant reports too, i try to find different ways of presenting who our customers are and how we’ve helped them. I created a story campaign to collect people’s stories, hoping to get a good visual from people of the interactions we’ve had and situations we’ve helped them with. It was successful but we were still missing the human visual component. I have names and stories, but i can’t see their smiling faces. i collect survey comments and am trying to put them into a wordle in order to add some sort of visual component to the words they’ve given us, but there still aren’t any bright eyes.

for our 300,000th question since our launch in 2003, i’m hoping that we can find an excited, smiling person to come meet us, get a plaque and take some photos for a press release. the day will go well, people excited, cake to be had, and we will celebrate the success of our service. and i will finally get to see someone in person who we’ve helped.

if you take a look at my job description it’s clear that my immediate customers are the librarians and liaisons around the state that provide the front line service and indeed i get to interact, hear, and see them on a mostly regular basis. But as explained in that book i had to read for Justice + Pluralism class freshman year of college, no matter how much you love your work, if you never see how your widgets contribute to the whole final product, your widget making can get very very tedious and unfulfilling very quickly.

i dont know how to solve this or the other problems in the world but until then, as so eloquently captured with my baseball card photo, i remain alone with the information. a librarian in her castle, trying to build a drawbridge out into the world.

possibly related posts:

1. Getting customers to conform, or not.
2. your customers- in two years.

somewhere in there it mentioned (or got me thinking about) asking service providers to lower their rates/fees. the bf and i had been discussing how a family member had gotten her cable provider to continue the lower promotional rate instead of raising her bill to the normal, higher, rates just by asking. very cognizant of how much we’re spending these days, i figured i’d give it a shot.

i write about customer service a lot. usually when the service is somewhere in the excellent or horrific range.  in this case the experience was just okay but the outcome was awesome. here’s what happened:

with yet another $99 triple play + netbook cable flier in my hand i call up our service provider for phone, internet and tv. immediately i’m reminded why i hate calling these people; their automated phone system; that computerized female is highly annoying and not nearly as intelligent as she should be. she asks if i’m calling about my #. yes. she asks what service i’m calling about but doesn’t give me an “all” option (something i deal with with MPOW’s vendor a lot… no ALL option). i continue to say “customer service” but Ms. Automated and I start a fight. she wont connect me yet because she hasn’t decided who’s the best person to deal with my issue.

I say something i thought applied (i can’t remember what now) and am connected. i’m on hold for only the briefest of minutes but am connected to Mr. OverseasOperator who asks me to “know my phone number” and informs me that he is in the DSL customer service department and can’t help me but he’ll transfer me to someone who can. I didn’t remember saying DSL, but the tv was on loud in the background and the automated system may have picked up something from there.  Before i’m transferred i hang up and try again. previous experiences with being transferred from overseas back over here have told me the connection quality deteriorates with each connection. fun stuff for a phone company.

i look up the # on GetHuman, a site i have bookmarked on my cell for easy access, and call the number listed. Ms. Automated greets me again and we do battle for a few minutes. I keep saying “operator” as instructed by GetHuman and eventually do get a human. An operator who transferred me to “the right department.” Very quickly i got someone else. He identified himself but I’m going to call him Matt. Matt listened to me explain why i was calling and then said that they’re quality is “better and faster than the cable company’s and i was really comparing apples to oranges”, but that i might want to talk to someone in cancellations to “see what they can do.” He transferred me over and a girl who i’ll call Angie who answered right away and listened to me explain why i was calling (oranges or apples, i want the cheapest fruit). She asked permission to view my account and took a look. she asked if we watched HBO (the one premium we pay for) and i said we did on a fairly regular basis (it’s all Bill’s fault). after a few minutes and some apologies about a slow computer, she said she could give us a $10 discount each month until the end of our contract (and subsequently the promotional period). I didn’t think to haggle further (i’m learning) but i was happy with the outcome. today i feel i should have pushed for a netbook (which was the promotion directly after the one we signed up under) but i let it go.

i still had to battle the automated phone system (which, for a phone company is fairly full of fail) but the overall outcome was very positive. Angie was glad to help and didn’t fight me at all. I said i wanted cheaper service, she made it happen. Rock on, Angie.

The moral of the story is to ask for the cancellations department immediately and not to take no for an answer.

next, i’m thinking of calling the electric company but i’m fairly sure i’ll get laughed at. :-)

possibly related posts:

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