What I wish patrons would understand about library

Jerry Kuntz, Electronic Resources Consultant at Ramapo Catskill Library System writes: \” Recently I\’ve been involved in rolling out new public catalog software
(for about the 8th or 9th time in my career). This time we had a little
limited flexibility in customizing the interface, so we created an online
survey.
That survey ran its course for about 6 weeks, and some of the comments we
got are the same ones I heard at every library I\’ve worked in, no matter
what brand of software was being used. When we took the survey down I put up
a page explaining some things about it, but that got me thinking about all the
things I wish we could communicate to our patrons better about library
technology.
Here is my list of the top ten things I wish library users knew what we
do:\”

Read on for his list, maybe you can add to it…

Jerry Kuntz, Electronic Resources Consultant at Ramapo Catskill Library System writes: \” Recently I\’ve been involved in rolling out new public catalog software
(for about the 8th or 9th time in my career). This time we had a little
limited flexibility in customizing the interface, so we created an online
survey.
That survey ran its course for about 6 weeks, and some of the comments we
got are the same ones I heard at every library I\’ve worked in, no matter
what brand of software was being used. When we took the survey down I put up
a page explaining some things about it, but that got me thinking about all the
things I wish we could communicate to our patrons better about library
technology.
Here is my list of the top ten things I wish library users knew what we
do:\”

Read on for his list, maybe you can add to it…\”1. There is no national electronic interlibrary loan network for public
libraries that can deliver any existing title. Even State and regional ILL
networks are automated with very limited technology, and exist by
cooperation, not mandate.


2. The Library of Congress is not a national lending library. It does not
have every recent title published.


3. Public libraries don\’t have programmers on their staff developing the
integrated library software. They license the software from vendors that
specialize in that business.


4. If security measures aren\’t imposed on public computers, they break
very quickly.


5. You can\’t do everything on a secured computer that you may be able to
do on a machine at home.


6. Automated library catalogs with nice features that allow you to place
hold requests, check your library record, etc. are tied into a whole
integrated system that includes the circulation and inventory control. The
library catalog with these features can\’t [yet] be purchased independently
of the whole software system.


7. The library may consider the functionality of the circulation,
inventory control, acquisitions, serials, etc. parts of the integrated
system to be just as important–or even more important–than the catalog.


8. Just because the computer says it\’s available and on the shelf doesn\’t
mean that it is.


9. All recently published books do not exist in electronic format. The
Library of Congress does not have a collection of copyrighted electronic
texts that anyone can access.


10. Libraries that have licensed the few copyrighted works that are
available electronically can not grant access to those works to users of
other libraries.
\”

Jerry can be reached by email at: jkuntz at ansernet.rcls.org