Thursday, June 8, 2006, 9:38:53 AM, you wrote:
JD> On 6/8/06, Dan Lester <dan_at_riverofdata.com> wrote:
>> If the customer isn't satisfied because s/he wants it NOW, then that's a
>> universal situation in any library (and any business, for that matter). But
>> if the customer doesn't need instant satisfaction, which I realize is an
>> increasingly uncommon situation, then why doesn't ILL do it in almost all
>> cases? And can't the patron self serve via a web page to handle that? In
>> fact, that could eliminate the user's need to come in at all.
JD> Hmm, how common is it to consider a library patron a customer who
JD> needs to be marketed to, yet also assume they have extended knowledge
JD> of how libraries work?
In the university it is very common. There are many patrons,
particularly grad students and faculty, who are very familiar with how
libraries work and how to search, do ILLs, etc, etc. On the other
hand there are the "unwashed masses" who have never been in the
library, who write their papers from results of google searches, and
don't realize we're not all little old ladies going "ssshhhh". Those
are the ones we particularly need to market to, although the
experienced ones also need to be kept informed of new services, how we
can give them further assistance, etc. Why? They're very frequently
the power brokers, the ones getting big grants, the ones on the
Faculty Senate, and so forth.
JD> Most people, when they think of libraries, I think, think of books on
JD> a shelf. Which is really unfortunate, since there's a lot of
JD> resources other than books on shelves, and since there are lots of
JD> services to support knowledge gathering aside from checking out books
JD> at a specific location.
Of course there are, and that is part of what we need to market.
JD> I dunno if it's a safe assumption that Joe Patron will know that ILL
JD> exists, or how to use it if so.
Again, that depends on how you present and market it. Is there a link
to it in your databases, in your catalog? Is it prominently featured
on your home page? Have you been wise enough to change the name of it
to "DDD" for Document Delivery Department or something else? After
all, most ILLs aren't loans anyway, they're delivered documents.
JD> I can say that my experience with ILL
JD> is that it's a tremendous service generally poorly executed. For
JD> example, my academic library ILL form requires a second login and just
JD> sends a form email to an ILL librarian. When the request is filled, I
JD> get an email stating "A work you requested is now available." No
JD> details on what the work is, how long it will be there, etc.
Well, that's one that needs improvement. There are systems like
ILLiad that do it very well, delivering a link to click up the PDF of
the article, tells what the article is, and so forth. Your system for
ILL doesn't do all that ours does, but our system doesn't yet do all
the things I listed in the paragraph above, either. We all have
plenty of room for improvement.
JD> If someone does a search for something not held, shouldn't the catalog
JD> say "sorry, we don't have that, but we have these other editions of
JD> the same work over here, or we can get that specific edition in x
JD> days. If you request it, you'll be notified when it's available for
JD> you." Or even, "Sorry, that's checked out. Would you like to be
JD> notified when it's available?".
Again, many systems already do those things.
JD> Going back out to the more general point of setting and meeting
JD> customer expectations, you can assume the users are ignorant not
JD> stupid-- and serve their needs by informing them of their options in
Well, some are knowledgable, more are ignorant, and some really are
stupid, but I'm not worrying about marketing to the third category.
Yes, market. Yes, determine their needs and desires in one or more
ways.
I think of the library like the microwave or the DVR. If most of us
had been asked if we'd like a microwave long ago, we'd say "what the
heck would I use that for and why would I want to spend 400 bucks on
one". Well, we learned why they're useful and why we want one, and
most people have one. Many who had a VCR said "why would I want to
spend bucks for a TiVo thingamajig, my VCR works fine". Well, once
they've had one, it is like the microwave....you don't want to live
without it.
So we need to let people know about our microwaves and DVRs. Better
yet, lets have HD DVRs to offer them so they can get really excited.
dan
--
Dan Lester, Data Wrangler dan_at_RiverOfData.com 208-283-7711
3577 East Pecan, Boise, Idaho 83716-7115 USA
www.riverofdata.com The Road Goes On Forever....
Received on Thu Jun 08 2006 - 14:33:19 EDT