Readers can pick up a mystery at Foothills [AZ] Library much like they would a Big Mac at McDonald’s.
The north Glendale library, the newest of the city’s three sites, offers a drive-up window. On average, 2,043 people a month have used the convenience so far in 2008. People order items from home and then go to the drive-up window.
The West Branch Library, under design, should have a drive-up window, too.
public libraries are not McDonalds’
Sorry, but libraries should have a drive-up window only after all their employees have paid healthcare. (I know that these come out of totally different budgets, but the appearance is of a luxury for patrons while staff members starve.)
Also, maybe public libraries should consider – especially in tight economic times – emphasizing their unique strengths, rather than add yet another multi-billion dollar corporation to the list of places they want to be “much like.” Public libraries have completely different funding models (and amounts!) and, arguably, different goals and purposes than Wal-marts, Barnes and Nobles’, and McDonalds’. It’s my experience that libraries that use these megacorporations as their models inevitably wind up being somewhat pathetic copies. Why be a bad version of something else when you could be an excellent version of yourself instead?
(I have a Facebook group about this topic called Public libraries are not megabookstores! if anyone’s interested)
Facebook
That info on your Facebook page about megastores and libraries. I for one have no interest in registering for anything to access the info. I went to read your stuff but it looks like I have to have a Facebook account to read it. Why not provide the info at a publicly accessible place on the web that does not require registration. Maybe at a blog. Basically I want a drive-up window.
Insurance
What idiot would take a full time job that did not provide insurance?
Heck the places with drive up windows through which you can get a hamburger, not a novel, offer health insurance to their full time employees.
Umm…
Quite a number of jobs in the Las Vegas area offer no health insurance at all. Too much of the workforce is notionally “temporary” on the books so it is gotten away with.
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Stephen Michael Kellat, Host, LISTen
So don’t take those jobs
If those jobs don’t get filled then they will make them more attractive. Health insurance is one way to make them more attractive.
Of course I was talking about library jobs, but really I would not take any job that did not offer insurance – or a significant salary above those which do offer insurance so I could purchase my own, which truly I would prefer.
However the economy sucks, and our fine legislators have raised the minimum wage. The actual cost per employee which must be a constant in order not to raise prices and price themselves out of business has forced employers to forgo insurance in favor of mandated wage increases. Is an employee better off at $6.50 with insurance or $7.50 without insurance. Large employee groups can spread the risk so they make attractive customers for insurance companies thus they can offer lower per person premiums. However if there is nothing left after the mandated cash compensation then it does not matter how low the health insuranc premiums may be.
We have almost reached the zenith of consumer spending, where consumers will stop buying things because they cost too much – that is why starbucks is closing 600 stores- if employers are forced by ‘progressive’ legislators to pay more they will simply hire fewer employees. Ask a teenager how hard it is to get a summer job. When I was in college I could stumble into the closest pizza place or grocery store and start the same day. Now employers have to hire workers they can count on to be there all the time, not just after class or on weekends. Grocery baggers and pizza makers are no longer exclusively teens. Now they are often adults who need the money or retirees who have much more availablility Forcing initiatives like this on the free market costs us all – by raised prices, and in some cases by costing people jobs or insurance.
No health care if no library
The drive-up is a service the library provides so that more people use the library more often. If people are not using the library cities are going to close them down and then you won’t even have a job, much less health care.
I think a drive up window can be distinguished from putting a coffee shop in a library. The drive-up window directly relates to the provision of books and information. One of the primary functions of most public libraries is the circulation of material and the drive-up offers a higher level of service.
In regards to the comment of “but the appearance is of a luxury for patrons while staff members starve”. What do you think when your library buys a $400 reference work. Isn’t that a luxury for the patrons while the librarians starve? Maybe libraries should only buy mass market paperbacks until the staff has health care.
another way to make patrons happy
I love using the drive-up window at my home library. I use it all the time, especially on my way home from the library I work at. I wish that library had a drive-up window — it would cut down on the number of patrons who park in the fire lane (blocking half of the driveway) and run inside, thinking that they’ll “just grab a DVD & go.”
I like the idea
As much as I like visiting the staff at my small local branch, I honestly don’t “visit” it that much. I browse the OPAC from work or home, place items on hold and when they are ready to pick up, I go in and do so. I’m not the browsing type and I don’t visit a library for the sheer pleasure of being in one. I rarely attend library programs. Drive up service is really just an extension of circulation. For libraries where parking is a premium (and trust me, there are many libraries that have parking issues), this could be a godsend for people like me who just check out items and leave.
What’s wrong with making it easier to check out a book?
I used to work at a library with a drive up window. It was popular with patrons right up to the time the money ran out and we had to choose between staffing the drive-up and re-shelving books.
Unless your building is designed to incorporate this feature to an existing service desk, doing this will add another fixed staffing cost to your budget.
But if you can afford it, I think a paging/drive through combo would be *very* popular, and generate lots more free publicity and word-of-mouth than almost any other service. It would also be a great tie-in to adding a mobile interface to your OPAC, so patrons could place requests on the way to the building.
We have real competitors now– if we make our resources hard to get to, people will go somewhere else.