Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Where is the line?
I have suggested that public service librarians must be technologically literate and that they must be willing to help people use the computers in their public libraries. One of the comments to that post said this:
Well, yes we did. Literacy programs are an established service at public libraries throughout the country (cite & cite). What's more, literacy is included as one of the PLA service responses, (Literacy: "Learn to Read and Write: Adult, Teen, and Family Literacy") and I don't recall any responses on the discussion blog that said literacy was not a legitimate service.
Having said that, I do recoginize that we have limitations; we cannot teach people to use a computer in a reference interview, we cannot afford to immerse ourselves with an in depth tutoring session on setting up an email account with one patron while five others await our assistance with other matters. Like many reference librarians, I deal with this tension every day and I understand that there are truly times where the best answer to their request for help may very well be to send them elsewhere for assistance or instruction. Some people need to take a class (which we offer), some people need to take a little initiative, and some people need to understand that it really isn't our job to do the work for them. However, there are miles and miles between those extremes and the very ordinary expectations for assistance that we should be able to provide. My problem is with library public service staff who have a low level of competency and who are therefore unable to help patrons with perfectly reasonable requests, such as "how do I create columns in a document?", or "Does your wireless network have a SSID?"
So, speaking of reasonable requests, two questions I am typically asked about providing support for our public access computers are, "What kinds of questions should I be expected to answer?" and "Where to I draw the line?". These are fair questions, but unfortunately there is no list of questions we will and won't answer. And there will never be a list. The only answer I can give to these questions is based on competencies. Librarians have to master a certain set of skills and they have to have a familiarity and a comfort level with computers so that they will develop their own sense for when they are approaching "the line". Once they get to that point of having a high level of confidence in their own competencies, then they will have developed the authority to establish "the line".
I have a fairly high degree of computer competency, myself. I am not a programmer, or a webmaster by any stretch, but I am quite comfortable with most enduser tasks. But, first and foremost I have a well developed understanding of what I don't know. Furthermore, since my comfort level with computers in general is fairly high, I am confident that what I don't know is often beyond what a patron should expect to get from me. By contrast, a librarian with a low level of computer competency, someone who is very unsure of themself around computers is also someone who doesn't even know what they don't know. For me, it is fairly easy to help patrons solve many problems with our computers AND I have little trouble establishing the boundaries of service. For the librarian who is uncomfortable around computers, those boundaries do not exist because they don't ever really know whether the patron has a reasonable request or not.
The closest thing we can come to providing librarians with an operational understanding of what is required to provide high quality service with public access computers is to make sure they develop the skills necessary to understand what the difference is between reasonable and extreme requests. Staff should be evaluated on their level of computer competencies and they should be required to get the training they need to make sure they are comfortable and confident with computers. More importantly, those same staff members need to be involved in discussions about "the line" so that the service they provide can be as consistent as possible. They need to work together to share knowledge, to bail each other out when they need help and to establish a team based understanding of what kinds of questions they can and cannot answer.
I said in my previous post that providing assistance to patrons on our computers is not a choice. Perhaps that should be rephrased to say that providing assistance to patrons on our computers is a choice, but we choose not to do so at our peril. We create expectations by providing the computers in the first place. If we don't think we should be helping people use computers, then not only are we not providing a level of service that is a reasonable expectation, but we are also missing opportunity after opportunity to connect with patrons and demonstrate our worth.
"When libraries were solely about books, did we teach the illiterate how to read? Did we teach librarians how to teach people to read? Rarely that happened, but mostly we didn't do those things."
Well, yes we did. Literacy programs are an established service at public libraries throughout the country (cite & cite). What's more, literacy is included as one of the PLA service responses, (Literacy: "Learn to Read and Write: Adult, Teen, and Family Literacy") and I don't recall any responses on the discussion blog that said literacy was not a legitimate service.
Having said that, I do recoginize that we have limitations; we cannot teach people to use a computer in a reference interview, we cannot afford to immerse ourselves with an in depth tutoring session on setting up an email account with one patron while five others await our assistance with other matters. Like many reference librarians, I deal with this tension every day and I understand that there are truly times where the best answer to their request for help may very well be to send them elsewhere for assistance or instruction. Some people need to take a class (which we offer), some people need to take a little initiative, and some people need to understand that it really isn't our job to do the work for them. However, there are miles and miles between those extremes and the very ordinary expectations for assistance that we should be able to provide. My problem is with library public service staff who have a low level of competency and who are therefore unable to help patrons with perfectly reasonable requests, such as "how do I create columns in a document?", or "Does your wireless network have a SSID?"
So, speaking of reasonable requests, two questions I am typically asked about providing support for our public access computers are, "What kinds of questions should I be expected to answer?" and "Where to I draw the line?". These are fair questions, but unfortunately there is no list of questions we will and won't answer. And there will never be a list. The only answer I can give to these questions is based on competencies. Librarians have to master a certain set of skills and they have to have a familiarity and a comfort level with computers so that they will develop their own sense for when they are approaching "the line". Once they get to that point of having a high level of confidence in their own competencies, then they will have developed the authority to establish "the line".
I have a fairly high degree of computer competency, myself. I am not a programmer, or a webmaster by any stretch, but I am quite comfortable with most enduser tasks. But, first and foremost I have a well developed understanding of what I don't know. Furthermore, since my comfort level with computers in general is fairly high, I am confident that what I don't know is often beyond what a patron should expect to get from me. By contrast, a librarian with a low level of computer competency, someone who is very unsure of themself around computers is also someone who doesn't even know what they don't know. For me, it is fairly easy to help patrons solve many problems with our computers AND I have little trouble establishing the boundaries of service. For the librarian who is uncomfortable around computers, those boundaries do not exist because they don't ever really know whether the patron has a reasonable request or not.
The closest thing we can come to providing librarians with an operational understanding of what is required to provide high quality service with public access computers is to make sure they develop the skills necessary to understand what the difference is between reasonable and extreme requests. Staff should be evaluated on their level of computer competencies and they should be required to get the training they need to make sure they are comfortable and confident with computers. More importantly, those same staff members need to be involved in discussions about "the line" so that the service they provide can be as consistent as possible. They need to work together to share knowledge, to bail each other out when they need help and to establish a team based understanding of what kinds of questions they can and cannot answer.
I said in my previous post that providing assistance to patrons on our computers is not a choice. Perhaps that should be rephrased to say that providing assistance to patrons on our computers is a choice, but we choose not to do so at our peril. We create expectations by providing the computers in the first place. If we don't think we should be helping people use computers, then not only are we not providing a level of service that is a reasonable expectation, but we are also missing opportunity after opportunity to connect with patrons and demonstrate our worth.
Tuesday, February 06, 2007
"I didn't get an MLS to do that."
This was said to me by a former staff member a few years ago.
This librarian was making the point that she did not agree with the expectation that she should be required to assist patrons with computer problems- helping them with word processing, spreadsheets, Powerpoint demos, formatting fliers, etc. on the library's public computers. She didn't have the skills to do it and felt that she couldn't give them the help they needed. She said she didn't go to library school to help people on the computers. I sympathized with her, but I could not agree with her for these reasons:
- Professions do not stand still.
Have you ever met a plumber who doesn't work with PVC? An electrician who only uses knob and tube wiring? A firefighter who thinks those new fangled breathing masks are just too complicated? No, professionals who don't keep up with the technologies that affect their work go out of business. Librarianship is not immune to that. - We don't have a choice.
To me this is the most important reason. Even if we don't like computers, our patrons do. Libraries have established themselves as the place to get on the internet. We market this. We brag about it. We get federal funding for it (well, a little...). It is not responsible to provide access to computers without also providing the staff training necessary to make sure our people have the competencies to help patrons with them.
Furthermore, the line between information tools, social software, games and productivity tools is thoroughly blurred by now. To expect that we can choose what part of the technology we will help patrons with is simply unrealistic. - The jobs we signed up for may not exist anymore.
Or, they may. It depends on how you look at it. I signed up for this because it's a service profession. Nothing drives me more than getting someone exactly what they want. The "what they want" has changed in the years I've been on the job. If professionals cannot adapt to that or cannot accept this, then I understand when they say they didn't get an MLS to do this.
A reasonable response to this post is to ask where the line is. How far should we go to help patrons (because sometimes their expectations for assistance really are more than we can or should provide)? Next post will be about that. So, don't touch that...mouse, or whatever.
Monday, February 05, 2007
If you say you chat...then PAY ATTENTION
I needed some information that I figured would be easily found at another library. I noticed they had chat reference, which they very proudly advertised, along with the hours of availability. So I gave it a shot. Here's the short, sad story of that experience:
(tick, tick, tick, tick....that's the sound of a clock. Keep it in your head as you read, okay?)
[17:30] stivab: Hi, have a question for you. Are you there?
[17:33] stivab: Hello?
[17:34] stivab: sigh...bye.
Look, I'm not impatient. But, from the perspective of a person who uses IM pretty frequently, waiting four minutes for a response is a lifetime. My guess is someone forgot they were online, or was too busy to answer. Either way, I wonder at the message this sends to people.
By the way, it is now about fifteen minutes later and still no response. Hello!?
(tick, tick, tick, tick....that's the sound of a clock. Keep it in your head as you read, okay?)
[17:30] stivab: Hi, have a question for you. Are you there?
[17:33] stivab: Hello?
[17:34] stivab: sigh...bye.
Look, I'm not impatient. But, from the perspective of a person who uses IM pretty frequently, waiting four minutes for a response is a lifetime. My guess is someone forgot they were online, or was too busy to answer. Either way, I wonder at the message this sends to people.
By the way, it is now about fifteen minutes later and still no response. Hello!?
