What Could Kill an Elegant, High-Value Participatory Project?
The problem was not that the system was buggy or hard to use, but that it disrupted staff expectations and behavior. It introduced new challenges for staff–to manage return shelves differently, and to deal with queues. Rather than adapt to these challenges, they removed the system.
More With Less and Less
Brilliant Idea! Have some outsider come in and tell workers they need to add more time and effort to their work load. Obviously, the library staff work for free, and asking them to add to their workload is a blessing, allowing them to sacrifice more time and energy in the nun-like service to critical outsiders who have no concept of what the staff does.
You can notice the adolescent-like thinking that nothing is impossible as long as someone else is responsible. No one from outside the library volunteered to do this extra work. The person with the bright idea is not volunteering to make it work, either.
There is no one from the library saying, “Well, we will stop doing this so we can do this new thing instead.” No, they are saying to simply add a new responsibility and new workload on people who are probably already overworked.
And then outsiders stand around and sneer. Hey Bud, instead of sneering, why not volunteer _you_ and _your_ friend’s time to make this work? Or do you prefer just to stand around and whine about other people who actually work for a living?
R. Lee Hadden (These are my own opinions!)
adolescent-like thinking
I don’t normally disagree with you, but I think I’m going to side with the adolescent-like thinking here. Assuming this is true (it’s on the internet, it’s gotta be true), it seems like if a library is doing something people LOVE the library should find a way to keep it going. There’s probably a lot more to the story, so I’m going to get too serious on this.
When the patrons come, BUILD IT
Erm. Looks like the library started this of its own volition, there, Hadden. And look at that – the patrons WILLINGLY waited in line to participate in a project that they were interested and found some sort of value in. The thing to do isnt to kill the program (even if only a minor hiatus, although the article says they’d stopped for “some time”), but to brainstorm a new way to implement it while dealing with the initial process.
Your patrons love the idea. The worst thing you can do is kill it.
We complain all the time that we build it, but the patrons do not come. If you do something and you’re so swamped with patron participation, you don’t UNBUILD it. You REBUILD it.
Libraries are so stuck on making processes work for them that we forget that we’re not here for our own convenience – we’re here for that of our users.
This wasn’t a case of a broken program – it was a case of a problematic implementation. Sounds like the patrons would have been very understanding of that inconvenience lasting a bit longer while they hashed out a new way to deal with the influx of items. I bet if you got the service desk staff involved in the brainstorming, you’d find a lot of interesting and useful ways to alter the program so it worked better.
Both Patrons and Staff Matter
I agree and disagree with EVERYONE! 🙂
While I appreciate the sentiment of ‘when the patrons come, BUILD IT’ I think ROI is also very important. The problem likely sits less on the fact that the library cancelled the program and more on the fact that the resource impact was not anticipated and a strategy planned to deal with it was not ready to go.
While I’m sure people enjoyed the ability to ‘vote’ with their return, they may also be annoyed by the fact that ‘holds are taking forever to be filled’ and so on. The latter would have a serious impact on overall circulation – which, when a city looks at the value a library is providing, matters alot. (How can you assert your value as a library when you continue to have fewer materials in the public’s hands?)
In short, great ideas need to be treated to a coating of forethought and planning. That way, you can adapt to such issues as an increased resource impact with style and grace, rather than killing something that people love, even temporarily.
this was a horrible, horrible, horrible idea.
I’m glad it failed. just think of the working environment… there are multiple book drops labeled outside and inside, then labeled bins and labeled shelves. THEN the same labeling system is applied on inside shelving.
this must be in addition to the bins and shelves for new books, books on hold, books to be sent elsewhere, etc…
instead of just having one person discharge everything and sort it one of 3-4 ways, each book now has a complicated flow chart on where it can go first, then second. I could see the chaos now.. and boy, does it make me laugh.
it should have started with a change to the circulation software… and then the library could have printed colored bookmarks with the labels on them with matching barcodes…. as each book is discharged, the next screen allows for the scanning of the bookmark which applies the appropriate tag. this would eliminate all the various holding shelves. than you pull out the bookmark and stick it out front to be used again. the only problem is that like bank deposit slips, the book drop patron needs to keep a collection of the bookmarks at home to slip in when the book is dropped off. then you can keep your one book drop.
in fact, if you can modify the software, you can scan any number of bookmarks.. if you can scan one, you can scan ten… then you can run the report that pulls lists of “amazing” or “sucky” or “funny” books to put out on the shelves… but I guess they did it their way because no library software could be modified to allow this extra scanning….
Folksomomies
Adding user supplied metadata is bullshit.
Librarians know authority, and folksonomies are not authoritative.
“lazybrarians” – very unfair!
Unless you have actually worked with a system like this I think it is really unfair to label them “lazybrarians”. Lots of things sound great in theory, or look good on paper, but in real life just don’t work. I am sure we have all had to deal with “great” ideas, often being mandated from on high, which turn out to be a nightmare, and have problems that often can’t be anticipate. Don’t be so judgemental, unless you are prepared to try it yourselves or you have done so and it works.
WOW – even Dutch libraries have their limits
We had been getting the idea that Netherlands libraries were full of super-human 2.0 staff and could do anything. (Are those guys from Delft still on tour?) It’s sad that the program was abandoned instead of tweaked. It makes me feel a little more humble now about how far we can ask staff to go with these ideas.