Freed from their desks, reference librarians at the Orland Park IL Public Library have taken to the aisles to help patrons find the answers they need.
“We’re out there looking for them,” said Diane Srebro, assistant head of adult services. She asks a patron if he needs help as she makes the rounds with a HP Tablet as part of the new ‘Ask Me’ campaign.
The program began in the spring to enhance customer service for library patrons.
Armed with laptop computers and sporting “Ask Me” buttons, the librarians are fielding about 200 questions a month from the floor, Srebro said. All told, the reference desk averages about 3,000 reference questions a month.
“Technology has freed us from the reference desk,” Srebro said. “It’s part of our strategic plan for the adult services area.” Southtown Star.
Way to get out there
Instead of just wandering the library like some type of laptop wielding zombie how about opening the doors of your library and hitting the street. Go into businesses and ask what they do. Tell them about databases they can access from their business. Pass out your card to the people at the business. Look them in the eye and make personal contact. Then when they need some help they will dig out your card and give you a call or drop you an email.
I remember reading a study in library school about information seeking behavior by people. The first thing you do is ask the people around you. This study was pre-Google so a Google search is probably the first thing done now and then they ask the people around them. If the people directly around you don’t know the answer the information seeking sphere becomes wider but it tends to always start with the social circle of the information seeker. If you have gone into a business and introduced yourself and shaked hands with people you are much more likely to be in that circle.
Considering that you might want to get to know people take a plate of cookies and spend some time chatting with people. Let them do the talking and tell you about their lives and their work. Then you can think of information resources and books that would be useful or enjoyable for them. You don’t have to come up with things on the spot. Get their card and email them when you get back to the office and have had some time to pull somethings together for them.
The flip side of this relationship if that this people can also become information resources for the library. As you find out skills and knowledge that these people have they may be able to help you answer a question that is in their field.
We have been experimenting
We have been experimenting with “roving” but more people feel they been interrupted rather than needed help.
These number in this story do not show it is a strong use of time 3000 vs 200.