Renovation. We are near the end of a renovation
of our lower level. The architects have done a great job and the new
area will be bright, very colorful and very different from the more
conventional upper level. Some photos are available at:
http://www.mcmillanlibrary.org/library/construction/photos01.html
Self-Check becomes SOP. As of June, I re-ran our circulation statistics from a new angle. Only 10-12% of circulation runs through our circulation services desk. We are doing 75+% of our circulation through our self checkouts. A surprising 4% consists of online renewals, which many people are not even aware is a possibility. Where is the rest? Checkout by Outreach to the homebound or institutions, book boxes for schools and incidental checkout elsewhere, none of which involve patrons. Self check is now standard operating procedure, a complete changeover without any possibility of going back. We might be able to cut the over-the-desk number down to 4-8%, but that is merely icing on the cake, since we have surpassed all our original goals.
Staff spends a great deal of time issuing and renewing cards, accepting fines and checking addresses. The desk is as busy as ever, but with clerical tasks. Patrons who don't need staff mediation check out without waiting in line behind those paying fines or getting cards.
We are renovating the entire area. Once that is complete, we will post photos and I hope to get a presentation together and post it here.
My library has emphasized self-service. In my off hours and as my own opinion, I have developed the following:
Some Tenets of Self-Service
1. A great deal of library service has always been self-service. Many patrons use the library without assistance and with minimal contact with staff and like it that way. They are not unsocial or dysfunctional. Many shoppers don’t like sales associates hanging around them either.
2. Some core functions can not be provided well by self-service. Reference. Reader's advisory. Teaching people to use the library's resources. Arts and cultural programming. Libraries should focus on making staff support of these as available and visible as possible.
3. Some core functions work quite well as self-service. Internet access with patron self-registration. Holds pickup. Wireless Internet access. Community gathering space. Displays. Remote use and placing of holds. These all require considerable work to make them function properly, but not at Point of Service.
4. Repetitive tasks should be automated as much as possible and, if physically burdensome, split among part-time staff. Good management and worker's compensation demand nothing less.
5. The move to self-service will bring about disruption in staffing, procedures and routines. It is likely that certain kinds of positions (those that checked out books) will be phased out and new positions (service desk types) will replace them.
6. Staff is the most expensive part of the library. If you are not planning to move to self-service and the staff reorganization it will bring, you are not making the best use of that resource. Too much of library work is still in a pre-automation stage.
7. At some libraries, the reorganization will help handle growth in use without new staff. At other libraries, it will entail fewer staff and/or staff at new classifications.
8. A split between check-in/shelvers and service desk staff does not represent deskilling, but a recognition that they operate at different levels. Service desk staff will require a different (and higher level) skill set than checkout desk staff. Shelving is, unfortunately, mainly a McJob.
9. Self-service should always be optional, with staff on hand to assist patrons as required, even if it means operating a self-check station for the patron. Self-service as a form of abandonment is suicide for the organization.
10. Self-service will annoy some patrons, my mother among them. Many more will see it as a sign that the library is being responsible and technologically forward. Anyone under 30 will love it.
11. Like MARC records, automated library systems and digital resources, the self-service library will cause anguish in the profession for the next decade and then become the status quo. By 2015, no one will be quite sure what all the fuss was about.
12. Self-service either changes everything or it changes nothing. If you are self-checking 80% of your circulation, have patron pickup of holds, patron self-registration for workstations and wireless Internet, then you have changed just about everything. Welcome to the future. If not, then you have merely waded into the shallow end of the pool and have a lot of work ahead of you. Sooner or later, you will have to learn to swim. It's a car, not a horseless carriage.
13. Throughout all this change, the public library can and must remain constant. Not constant in superficial things like the types of technology used or position descriptions, but in its mission. That hasn’t changed since the Boston Trustees first enunciated it in 1852.
After I have rewritten this a few times, I will move it to its own page and see if anyone is interested in publishing it.
I have moved my Thoughts on CIPA to a separate page, allowing me to expand them and make room here. What was it all about? FORUM ANALYSIS.