Lee Hadden writes: “There is an interesting article on an Information Specialist in baking. The
article, on the front page of the Wall Street Journal for December 30,
2003, “No, Virginia, There Isn’t a Betty Crocker; Ms. Leopold Is Close:
Novice Cooks in Distress Get Help From General Mills; The Bundt-Pan
Mystery.”
They say Linda Leopold, the 59-year-old former home-economics teacher is the star of the team, the one who answers questions that stump her colleagues. About five years ago, she was elevated to the new role of information
specialist. This means she takes the calls that other hotline employees
can’t answer quickly. General Mills receives about 1.2 million consumer
calls, e-mails and letters a year. About 98% can be answered immediately.
Nearly all other inquiries go to Ms. Leopold, who got this job because she
was “battle tested” and was “consistently providing the right answer and
not getting flustered,” says her boss, Jeff Hagen, director of the General
Mills Consumer Services Department.
Ms. Leopold believes she got the nod because she’s fast. She holds
the department record for answering 159 calls in a 6 1/2-hour period, or
about 2 1/2 minutes a call. During the busy winter holidays, this takes up
all her time. In the off-season, she also compiles recipes and trains
hotline employees.
Read more about it at: www.wsj.com (subscription required), or through many
library information services such as ProQuest or InfoQuest.“
Half-baked better than half-assed?
Maybe librarians are just half-assed information specialists, seeing as at least 60 per cent of the time librarians have the patron leaving the library with an incorrect or incomplete answer to thier inquiries.
It’s librarians’ holier-than-thou-we-know-more -and-better attitude that continues to piss people off and make them only too happy to take their business elsewhere – anywhere!
60% fallacy
A lot of the studies touted by earlier generations (browse the Z711s in your library — they involved calling or visiting libraries with questions, with the sole intent of seeing if the correct answer was given — this itself brings up serious ethical issues, as it could almost be compared with taking up an ER doctor’s time with a bogus ailment while real patients are forced to wait…) not only chose exceptionally tricky questions, but fudged statistics by lumping together “did not give a precise answer” with “gave the wrong answer”.
So if someone asks me if the library has a certain book, and I show them the online catalog where they can do a title search, under this methodology that counts as if I haven’t given them the “right” answer. Fudging results this way runs contrary to a fundamental goal of librarianship to educate the user (a la teach a man to fish…) instead of solely acting as an information gopher.
Re:60% fallacy
Re: the last point, most patrons don’t want to be “educated”. They just want to be served and be provided a solution to their problem. Great customer service both informs *and* delivers. This is something many librarians continue to fail to understand or just aren’t prepared to do.
The levels of direct customer service in too many public libraries is abysmal.
Most patrons will have to be educated, like it or
not…
Unless they start funding the libraries with enough money to have enough librarians cover all the bases.
It is absurd to demand perfect service and extended hours without proper staffing/budget levels.
And libraries have always been underfunded, historically. You cannot have it all for free.
Most people go into librarianship (I did) with an urge to serve the public, not make a lot of money. Finally, the public got so out of control, I decided money was important, after all, and that I and my fellow librarians were not being paid enough for the hassle we were put through by the public and by unconcerned library managers.
Librarians are people, too, and underpaid people. So, for that matter, are library paraprofessionals.
Don’t like your public-library service? Go in and ask about funding levels, retention of professional staff, turnover among all staff, pay, benefits, and working conditions.
Sorry some seem to have experienced librarians with a know-it-all, holier-than-thou attitude, but your attitude does not seem all that great, either.