NSLS Blogs

 Home » Blogs » Annotations

Annotations

March 15, 2006

Turning No into Yes

On page 48 of the November 2005 issue of American Libraries an article appears that is titled “Generating Goodwill: Turning No into Yes (There is more to service with a smile than meets the eye.) It discusses how a Librarian in a public library branch in Maryland has created something called a “no log” that has had a profound effect on customer service.

Basically, the staff records every time they have to say no to a patron or co-worker. Then they review the situation and try to figure out if there is someway they could say yes. The author cites several specific examples but, I am sure you can think of some of the times you have said no. Do you say no because it is truly beyond your capabilities to do the service or is it just more convenient not to?

One of the examples the author mentions is the case of the library’s public photocopier being out of service and a frantic gentleman with just one thing to copy being turned away instead of the librarian using the staff copier to make his copy for him. What other small acts of kindness do we fail to perform because it isn’t convenient or it isn’t specifically covered in our policies or guidelines? These little acts are what makes the difference between good service and exceptional service.

What kind of service do you want to provide your library users?

posted by Anna at 10:29 am | Comments (0)

March 7, 2006

If we could get library catalogs to do this…!!!!

I was just perusing the March 2006 issue of KM World, when I spotted an article on page 6. The title “A site to delight the bibliophile” caught my eye and I began to read how Alibris, a company that helps people find books, is taking a giant step toward customization and adding value to their transactions. They have selected Cormetric’s A/B testing platform to measure customer demand, provide the ability to distill the search for specific types of materials into a very percise operation, and to improve marketing.

If libraries could adopt this platform, it would have profound implictions for collection development, interlibrary loan, and customer satisfaction. Imagine, a library user being able to start a book search by accessing the online card catalog, then being able to narrow there search to an item in a specific format or edition, and having that feed dirrectly into an ILL component. With this information a user profile could be created and when they view the catalog the computer could anticipate which materials would be of most interest and display them in that fashion for this particular individual.

Wouldn’t it also be cool, if this information could also be used to match booksale books with potential buyers. Also, when the patron was done with the book they were given the option of purchasing a similar work with a certain amount of the profit going back to the library?

Read the article and see what you think…

read more »

posted by Anna at 11:43 am | Comments (0)

March 6, 2006

Best Article Yet On Wikipedia vs. Britannica

People seem to fall into three camps when it comes to Wikipedia: those who love it, those who hate it, and those that have never heard of it. I happen to be in the “people who love it” camp, to me this is the way knowledge should be shared. Therefore, I am especially pleased to share with you and article from the March 2006 issue of the Searcher Magazine

The article is wonderful in doing a very thorough job of frankly discussing Wikipedia and Britannica. Just to put in a word hear, I love Britannica and always will. I have so many great memories of making vast discoveries among its pages. However, access to the encyclopedia, either online or in paper is always available and that is when I turn to Wikipedia. Read the article below and see what you think….

read more »

posted by Anna at 11:55 am | Comments (0)