heidi go seek

Originally found via Library Stuff is this blog post through Seattlest, Does Self-Checkout Make Libraries Less Friendly?

*sigh*

This is one of those issues with me that drives me nuts. I will forewarn you that this post will probably make me sound like a horrible librarian, but here's the deal; I hate chit chatting with patrons. I'm not unfriendly, on the contrary, I'm quite friendly to anybody who walks through the door of my library, but I wish most people would just save their life stories for somebody else. I'm there to do a job, and even without checking books in and out all day, I have more than enough on my plate to occupy my time.

Then there's the patron perspective, I love self-checkout as a patron because I don't have to talk to anybody! I have no desire to get to know the librarians at my own branch (which is not the library I work for); probably because I know they have more pressing matters than to chit chat with their patrons all day.

I've never been one for small talk anyway, brief snippets of "how do you dos" are fine, but we've had patrons come to the library and talk to various members of our staff for hours, yes hours! You're like a deer caught in the headlights, there's nowhere to run, nowhere to go! Some of our more chatty patrons probably think I'm not friendly, but one thing most people have come to realize is that no matter how I feel about that person, I will bend over backwards to find what they're looking for. It's not because I care about why they're looking for something, it's because it's my job to help them. I don't need to know the back story to be good at my job. I don't even need to like a person to be good at my job. They come in with a problem, and hopefully they leave with some more information to help them with the solution. That is my goal for everybody.

This is one of them sticky issues, but a question has been floating around in my head ever since a recent meeting at work. I'm not asking this to be sarcastic, I'm actually serious because I don't know how other librarians feel; but how far should customer service go in libraries? Is it really my job to listen to a patron's life story for 2 hours in the name of customer service or is there a point where you have to say, "Hey listen, it's been nice chatting with you, but I really have to get back to work?" I've been thinking about this for some time because I actually think that some people within my organization believe it is my job to listen to their life stories in the name of customer service. My prior customer service experience was in food service, there's just no way a person has the luxury of chatting up another person that long when you're working in food service. My dad owned a bakery most of my childhood and he's probably more like me in personality. Many of his customers loved to talk to him, but he was good at breaking off the conversation when he needed to get back to work without offending his customer. If they wanted to talk for a long time he had no problem calling them into the back while he was baking to work as they talked. He seemed to know the right balance to keep the customer happy but still be able to get his work done in the day. There are some patrons I do genuinely enjoy talking to, but for the most part I see conversing with patrons as a necessity to a point.

That being said, I don't always dislike working on the desk. Of course all of my time is desk time when I work; I don't have a choice otherwise. I love the challenge of helping people find what they need, and I'm lucky enough to work with some great people who prefer the chit chatting, so we generally tag-team (I find the stuff and then they can chit chat with my co-workers if they so desire).

Of course nobody uses our self-checkout anyway because it's set up poorly. The user interface is horrible, the error messages are generic and unhelpful, and I suspect most people bypass it to chat with us at the desk. I actually had one patron said he wouldn't use it because it would "put us out of a job". The irony of that is it was a Saturday and we had a two page list of things to do that day from our supervisor sitting on the desk in front of him.

Maybe the answer boils down to what you expect from a library. I expect libraries to be a place to find information and for somebody to be helpful when I need help. The customer service I expect from a library is no different than the customer service I expect from a restaurant or a store of any kind. My standards in customer service are actually surprisingly high given my indifference to most things. I suppose it's hard for me to step out of that and realize the motivation others feel to share their life stories with complete strangers (because even though they see me every day at the library, I am really a complete stranger to them).

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