The Best Service Is No Service

Roy Kenagyrjkenagy@netins.net

www.whatwouldranganathando.orgNovember 11, 2013

Council Bluffs Public Library

Should your library depend on heroes?

Heroes: who needs them?

CIRC & Reference: Law & Order pastiche

What are some of the issues in thinking of Circ & Reference as “the public library system”?

• Statement doesn’t cover that the library is the heart of the community

• Leaves out the patron completely• We’re not separate; we’re

intertwined• Implies that everything happens at

the library• Implies that all we do is check out

books and answer reference questions

• Tasks are not that narrowly defined• Doesn’t mention other programs

that are offered• Doesn’t mention community services

• don’t find items; we facilitate finding items• Missing the story; an interaction between

the library staff/each other/the public/give them an experience

• Items have to be bought, paid for, and processed before they can be checked out

• Implies that reference people are professional, circ “staff” are flunkies

• Other staff and functioned not mentioned; check out not confined to circ

• All departments are not equal in budgets or staffing

• Leaves out people who just come and don’t check anything out

"A reference transaction is an information contact that involves the knowledge, use, recommendation, interpretation, or instruction in the use of one or more information sources by a member of the library staff. Information sources include printed and non-printed materials, Internet, FirstSearch, or EBSCOhost, machine-readable databases, catalogs, and other records. Also, count referrals to other libraries, institutions, and persons both inside and outside the library. The request may come in person, by phone, fax, mail, electronic mail, or through live or networked electronic reference service from an adult, young adult, or child. "

"Do not count directional transactions or questions of rules or policies.Examples of directional transactions are "Where are the children's books?"and "I'm looking for a book with call number 612.3." An example of a question of rules or policies is 'Are you open until 9:00 tonight?'“

~Scott Dermont, quoting the rules on IOWALIB, Oct 4, 2013

“Reference” includes reader’s assistance.

Who does the most work in the Public Library System?

Transactions Iowa Council BluffsVisits per contact 11 10Checkouts per contact 17 18Internet sessions per contact 2 2

"Contact": reference or reader's assistance transactionFrom annual data for Fiscal Year 2011-2012

For FY 2012 In Iowa, the ratio of reference transactions to library visits was 1:11.

Why might the reality be even higher?

New Jersey Bell: How to Make Friends by TelephoneBell System:

How to Make Friends by Telephone(1940s)

How do we communicate with the hidden 90%?

Kathy Sierra. "Presentation Skills Considered Harmful." Serious Pony (October 4, 2013): [blog]; available at http://seriouspony.com/blog/2013-10/4/presentation-skills-considered-harmful.

“And if they’re my users, then this presentation is a user experience.

And if it's a user experience, then what am I?

Ah... now we’re at the place where stage fright starts to dissolve.

Because if the presentation is a user experience, than I am just a UI [User Interface].

That’s it.

I am a UI.

Nothing more.

And what’s a key attribute of a good UI?

It disappears.

It does not draw attention to itself.

It enables the user experience, but is not itself the experience.

And the moment I remember this is the moment I exhale and my pulse slows. Because I am not important. What is important is the experience they have. My job is to provide a context in which something happens for them.”

Kathy Sierra, "Presentation Skills Considered Harmful."

Librarian!

,

Felicia A. Smith. "Helicopter Librarian: Expect the Unexpected | Backtalk." Library Journal Web site (August 28, 2012).

Building relationships with students is a crucial component of Helicopter Librarian instruction sessions. I make a strong first impression dressed either in a complete pirate costume or as a Wonder Woman avatar in Second Life. But even when I am not in disguise, students are extremely comfortable approaching me because they just sense that I am no ordinary librarian.

Frei & Morriss:Uncommon Service

Frei & Morriss: Uncommon Service

Frances Frei and Anne Morriss. Uncommon Service: How to Win by Putting Customers at the Core of Your Business. Boston: Harvard Business Review Press, 2012.

• Staff aren’t the problem• Treat your customers as part of your

staff• Design systems so that heroes aren’t

required

“Eliminate slogans, exhortations, and targets for the work force asking for zero defects and new levels of productivity. Such exhortations only create adversarial relationships, as the bulk of the causes of low quality and low productivity belong to the system and thus lie beyond the power of the work force.” (p.24)

“All the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average."

The Lake Wobegon effect

The Normal Curve

“There's a simple and compelling economic argument in favor of design over training: design is a one-time investment; training is an ongoing investment over the life the product.”

Gene Smith. "Training vs. Design." nForm. (April 10, 2013): http://nform.com/blog/2013-04/training-vs-design.

Exterior – Burlington Public Library

Oldenburg:The Great Good Place

Oldenburg: The Great Good Place

Cafes Coffee Shops Community Centers Beauty Parlors

General Stores Bars Hangouts

&How They GetYou ThroughThe Day

& how it gets you through the day

http://coffitivity.com/

The Servicescape

Ambience; setting; physical and symbolic environment.

Zeithaml, Bitner, & Gremler, Services Marketing: Integrating Customer Focus Across the Firm

Weaver: Creating Great Visitor Experiences

Weaver: Creating Great Visitor Experiences

Creating Great Visitor Experiences

1. Invitation2. Welcome3. Orientation4. Comfort5. Communication6. Sensation7. Common Sense8. Finale

Service Rules that Don’t Suck

Practices• Free, good coffee• Service without asking –

expired reservation• Home depot: Taking you to

the shelf• Target: just to be there• Creating repeat customers:

gluten free at restaurant• Getting away from the desk

Policies• Perks & reward cards• Recognizing repeat

customers (personal)• Service desks without

phones• Empowering employees to

correct customer service issues

• Taking expired coupons• Exceptions to the rules

Who do you want your readers to become?

The value of transformation

Pine & Gilmore:The Experience Economy

Pine & Gilmore: The Experience Economy

The progression of economic value

OCLC:From Awareness to Funding

OCLC: From Awareness to Funding

The Transformative Library

Readers are makers.

Narratives of making one’s life are at the core of the public library reading experience.

Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi explore the vibrant cuisine of their home city—with its diverse Muslim, Jewish, and Christian communities. Both men were born in Jerusalem in the same year—Tamimi on the Arab east side and Ottolenghi in the Jewish west. This stunning cookbook offers 120 recipes from their unique cross-cultural perspective, from inventive vegetable dishes to sweet, rich desserts. Ottolenghi and Tamimi have collaborated to produce their most personal cookbook yet.

Book buying survey 2012 – top circulators - cookbooks

Source: Library Journal Book Buying Survey 2012

Steps Toward Transformation

Self-service; coproduction; the Ask.

Create engaging self service.

The original Piggly-Wiggly store, Memphis. 1917 photo by Clarence Saunders (Library of Congress).

Honebein & Cammarano:Creating Do-It-Yourself Customers

Honebein & Cammarano: Creating Do-It-Yourself Customers

Co-Production

• Vision• Access• Incentives• Expertise

Schrage: Who do you want your customers to become?

The “Ask”

Who do we ask our customers to become?

Librarians are masters of the circular “Ask”

• Information Literacy• Others?

What is the “Ask” in these Service Responses?

• Connect to the online world• Satisfy curiosity• Know how to find, evaluate, and use

information• Create young readers• Build successful enterprises

Connect to the Online World

Residents will have high-speed access to the digital world with no unnecessary restrictions or fees to ensure that everyone can take advantage of the ever-growing resources and services available through the Internet.

Connect to the Online World

• Leveling the playing field for those who don’t have internet; look outside of themselves and be aware of the world; globally aware.

• So they can become gainfully employed.• Find answers instantly.• Self-sufficient, competitive, and informed and

productive citizens.• Able to function in our changing world.• Information 24/7.

Satisfy Curiosity

Residents will have the resources they need to explore topics of personal interest and continue to learn throughout their lives.

• Enrichment to their lives; asking them to continue learning throughout their lives; develop their individuality – not just a product.

• So they won’t be bored or boring.• Explorers.• Problem-solvers. Getting beyond the commodity

level.• Self-motivated.• Allowing them to learn at their own rate of

understanding.

Know How to Find, Evaluate and Use Information

Residents will know when they need information to resolve an issue or answer a question and will have the skills to search for, locate, evaluate, and effectively use information to meet their needs.

• Create repeat customers; know that the library will help them. Informed individuals; critically analyze, think for themselves.

• So they can make informed decisions.• Part of life-long learning; take what they want to do and go

on with it.• So they won’t be duped and misinformed; helps bullshit

detectors; build their personal narratives.• Being able to experience the joy of discovery.• Realize their potential as an individual; helps them redefine

their lives.

Know How to Find, Evaluate and Use Information

Create Young Readers

Preschool children will have programs and services designed to ensure that they will enter school ready to learn to read, write, and listen.

Create Young Readers

• Have to learn the basics; have social skills; find the joy in learning, reading, discovery. Asking them to start on the path toward maturity, encouraging them to learn about the world they live in. Asking them to love books/reading.

• Literacy-based programming, help fill the gap for the haves & have-nots.

• Enjoy the experience of reading; successful in future endeavors.

• Be curious so they can be successful in school.• Ready to learn; our future depends upon it.• Meet challenges; develop confidence. Asking them to think.

Build Successful Enterprises

Business owners and non-profit organization directors and their managers will have the tools they need to develop and maintain strong, viable organizations.

Build Successful Enterprises

• Benefits community, encouraging growth on individual and collective levels. Encourages people to follow their passions and meet community needs.

• Builds stronger community.• Start; improve; change to be a successful business.• Individuals benefit from a strong community; communities

benefit from strong individuals. Empowering individuals. Builds rapport/buy in between business community and library.

• Collaborate and share resources; people as resources.• Improves the city image. Attracting businesses and young

people; and not be boring.

What to do next

Inoculate | Innovate

Inoculate against calcification.

Gawande:The Checklist Manifesto

Gawande: The Checklist Manifesto

Hertz: Eyes Wide Open: How to Make Smart Decisions in a Confusing World

“Become aware that we have to make over 10,000 decisions a day.”

We decide how to frame our attention, and thus what we pay attention to.

Eyes Wide Open• Where possible, don’t make big decisions way before you

actually need to.• Where you have the ability to “dress the environment,” create

as blank a backdrop as you can.• Get second and third opinions, at least.• Push yourself to tap into the lay experts in your immediate

environment who you are not sufficiently valuing.• Start thinking about how you might use listening-in techniques.• Online, beware sock puppets.• Whenever you’re given data to consider, think about what you

might not be being shown, and why.• If you know you’re stressed, watch out that you’re not falling

back on innate and probably unconscious stereotypes and prejudices.

Random Fluctuation in the Quantum Multiverse: You Are Here

(1)Random fluctuation in the

quantum multiverse.

An Amusing Coincidence: The Mirror Scene

(2)Amusing coincidence.

(3)Duck Soup.

As a rule, the third time it happens, you have Duck Soup.

• Your thoughts on monitoring the production of Duck Soup in your library’s system.

Diagram by Karn G. Bulsuk (http://www.bulsuk.com)

PDCA Plan-Do-Check-Act

• Eliminate dumb contacts• Create engaging self

service• Be proactive• Make yourself easy to

contact • Own your actions across

the library• Listen and act• Deliver great “customer”

service experiences

Eliminate dumb contacts.

Coffee

Hot water

AB

Create engaging self service.

Be proactive.

Consider the checkout slip – physical evidence

Make yourself easy to contact.

Own your actions across the library.

Listen and act.

Deliver great “customer” service experiences.

The Implied Author

Wayne C. Booth. The Rhetoric of Fiction. 2nd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983.

The Implied Librarian

Lao Tzu, trans. Mitchell:Tao Te Ching

Lao Tzu: Tao Te Ching

"When the Master governs, the people are hardly aware that he exists. Next best is a leader who is loved. Next, one who is feared. The worst is one who is despised.

If you don't trust the people, you make them untrustworthy. The Master doesn't talk, he acts. When his work is done, the people say, Amazing: we did it, all by ourselves!"

Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, Chapter 17, trans. Stephen Mitchell

Amazing: we did it, all by ourselves