Speedy Service
I do love the two county Public Library systems that I deal with. Remember I grew up in a small town where the library was open 2 hours Wed and 2 hours Sat afternoons. After that, most public libraries are big improvements. Still, there is something to be said for “Speedy Service.” I was in a branch of the Library asking for help in locating a book that the computer OPAC said was on the shelf. The library staff at the circ desk checked and discovered that it had been returned either that day or the day before. They then advised me to order it to be delivered from another branch library and that they would hold it for me at the desk. This would be quicker than my waiting for them to get around to reshelving the books at that branch. When I questioned this, they explained they had 10 carts of books to put away and only 2 people to do it. Plus they had 2 tables of returned books to sort and put out. They thanked me for my patience and understanding. Of course I understood, I even felt bad that I didn’t have time to volunteer to help them put them away, but then I was “thinking.”
Here I teach with a very high circulation daily and a half-time aide. My library is extremely busy and I can never do enough to keep everyone satisfied. Yet I work to get the books out so that patrons can at least look through the carts while they are waiting for me to get them back on the shelf through creative use of staff and volunteers. At my other job in retail my supervisor told me the average time a customer is willing to wait is four minutes. Imagine the library patrons who are unwilling to wait for service. I could have ordered this book from Amazon.com quicker and had it delivered to my home. Do we hurt ourselves when we fail to provide speedy service?
Two thoughts - first, you can save time from shelving if you let patrons browse the books that are not yet shelved because many of the books will go out again without needing to be shelved.
My second thought is about speediness, and is simply that we do need to remember that there are limits to what one person can do in a day. I know that I do my best to provide everything that is requested as quickly as I can while also trying to anticipate future requests and be prepared for them. But this can be so exhausting that I am left feeling resentful that people can’t plan ahead a little better. Of course I understand those extenuating circumstances, but I wonder sometimes if my success in meeting last minute requests actually leads to expectations that I can do more and more with less and less. In most businesses, if demand for service goes up, then more people can be hired to meet the demand. That doesn’t seem to happen in our school libraries, and it is truly frustrating to have to advocate for our value, while at the same time having a demand for our services that we can hardly keep up with on a daily basis.
Comment by Beth McCheyne — March 4, 2006 @ 7:06 pm