Comments on: hi – 09mar

By: Scott

Scott — Sun, 12 Mar 2006 07:38:43 +0000

Given the description of the transaction I doubt this would have worked either, but…

… maybe you could transformed the interaction into one of a “Claims Returned”. Perhaps they would know how to handle that transaction better, and since the book had been returned… :-)

By: Angel

Angel — Fri, 10 Mar 2006 17:03:40 +0000

I see this as a management problem. As the picture displays its all about who has authority. I’ve discovered that most people who have control over authority issues don’t want to give it up regardless of how this reduces customer service. Passwords have become the new power trip. If it’s a recurring problem or issue, someone should reconsider giving up some of the authority and realizing that the staff on the front lines might just be able to make competent decisions regarding patron accounts.
But that’s just my two cents.

By: Brian

Brian — Fri, 10 Mar 2006 01:20:33 +0000

Years ago, I read a farinaceous* anecdote — I think it might’ve been in Dale Dauten’s book The Perfect Boss — about a company that actually did empower its customer service staff to do whatever they thought needed to be done. The phone-answering CS rep in the story hired a helicopter (without having to ask permission first) to make a delivery or something to set things right.

*My new slang for “cool”.

By: Rick Roche

Rick Roche — Thu, 09 Mar 2006 17:00:34 +0000

Your Mom takes really nice pictures!

On to the other topic – I see no good reason for there to be a block on your card when you returned the items and have no fines. That library needs to wake up and either fix the computer or fix the policy. At our library, there is always someone with the authority to fix problems, make exceptions, see that that our readers get their books.

I have been cringing every day the past two weeks as the Chicago Tribune has been running a very early series of Peanuts strips in which Charlie Brown is very worried about the library book he lost. All the kids tell him he is in really deep trouble and he imagines the punishment he is going to get from the librarians. Blocking your card when the book is back seems retro – it seems like it comes from a time when the librarian made you justify your worthiness to borrow a book. I guess we have not gotten as far as some of us like to think.

By: emily alling

emily alling — Thu, 09 Mar 2006 15:01:30 +0000

Great post....It is always interesting and illuminating to see how libraries' policies and procedures affect patrons by switching over the other side of the desk. I recently described a couple of encounters I had with a local public library on Our Future, a blog for the Massachusetts library community (My post, I must admit, is somewhat less thoughtful and more strident than your own description! must have inherited my own mom's poison pen...)