The first four weeks in the Hovedbiblioteket
They can be calm or be furious. They can be in a hurry and busy or might have some time to chat. And it does not matter, if they were angry, unpolite, saucy or whatever, because without them, we would not exist. ”They” are known as our patrons, users, readers, borrowers or clients. We want to make them happy and satisfied. We want to inform them, to serve them and – we want them to visit the library again. Because of that, the way we tread them is desicive.
In the past, librarians were guardians of information by protecting books. The only clients they had, were silent, frightened readers, who were not allowed to touch anything else but the doorknob. Today, librarians are hosts. More than ever before, they are sellers of their services. Therefore, it is important, how we treat our guests. It is a philosophy, which we experienced a lot in the last four weeks.
In the Hovedbiblioteket, the key point of this philosophy is an ”island”. The ”island” is composed of four information stations and five librarians. Four of them are responsible for one quarter of the island each, the fifth librarian works as a walking information desk. Before the service shift (Formidlingsvagt) starts, they always have a short briefing: what is special today, was there anything special while the last shift etc. Then their shift starts. The first shift starts at 8:15 and ends at 12:30, the middle shift lasts from 12:30 until 15:00 and the late shift starts at 15:00 and ends at 19:00. But there are two different kinds of service-duty. That is because of the long opening times. On weekdays, the Hovedbiblioteket opens at 8:00 and closes at 21:00. Obviously, there are times, while no staff is around. These hours are called ”self service”. The patrons have access to all library services, except the staff help. This allows the longest possible opening hours and access to a public meeting point (or what we call it: the famous third place). While the service duty, it is all about the information literacy. The librarians try to pass information and help the patrons as much as possible. And once the requested service is done, they ask for further services, which they can do for the patrons. Following the one-stop-shop principles.
To guarantee this great kind of services, it needs a lot of work from everyone. The librarians provide feedbacks among themselves, but they get also external feedbacks. At the moment, several mystery shoppers are at their work. Mystery shoppers are inconspicuous library users, who observe the librarians, while their work at the service-duty. It could be an old lady, who is searching for a crime novel, it could be a young student, who is looking for a suitable database or it could be a busy mother, looking for her sons favourite picture book. A mystery shopper asks for services, maybe one, two or a bunch of questions and writes down some notes. Was the service helpful or not helpful? Did he get enough of information? How was the quality of the information? This feedback reaches the librarian and he is able to improve his skills.
We are sure, we also improve our skills, while our stay here in Aalborg – we will update you.
Thank you for reading and have a nice fortnight.
PS: You will find the ”island” in the gallery.