My library card happens to be good at several of the local county and township libraries so I picked one that I had never been to before and went in to do my Secret Shopper. That was when I hit my first issue. Where do I ask my Reader Advisory question? I had planned to go to either the Reference Desk, or possibly a Fiction Desk if they had one. But apparently what this library has done, likely to reduce staffing needs and streamline customer service, is get rid of all of the specific desks. Instead they just had one main desk at the entrance that was billed as both the Info Desk and Check-out Desk.
At first I avoided the desk. I didn't want to dump the trickiness of an RA question on the, likely, part-time non-librarian who was on duty behind it. However, after some searching , I realized that my choices were either her, or one of the pages who were shelving books and at least the girl at the desk had access to a computer to help her.
So I went back to the desk and talked to, let's call her "Patty" to protect the innocent. Not that there's much protecting to be done. Yes, Patty was a part-time employee with no real training in RA and no idea that things like NoveList existed, but bless her heart, she tried her best.
Honestly, she asked all of the right questions. What had I just finished reading? What did I usually like to read? What did I like about those books? And we got to a good summary of what I was looking for. Character driven fantasy novels with a lot of suspense. The problem came in when we tried to take that summary and translate it into a book I hadn't read yet. As I said, Patty didn't know about NoveList, or any similar resources, and without going outside of my role as Secret Shopper I couldn't suggest them to her. So we ended up looking up some of my favorite authors and found a collaborative series between one of them and an author I'd never read before. They had several books in that series and I was sent off to find them. I haven't read them yet, but I skimmed the first few pages and it does seem worth reading, even if it isn't exactly the kind of thing I normally read.
(I did go back after I got the books and chatted with Patty. It was kind of fun going through their databases and finding the ones that work similarly to NoveList and helping her figure out how to use them. I think she was more excited than I was. But overall it was an interesting experience.)
I find it interesting that they combined the reference desk with the circulation desk. Not many part-time employees would know about Novelist or readers advisory. I am sure that you did help "Patty" more than she helped you!!
ReplyDeleteI had a similar experience during my Secret Shopper assignment. However, I was dealing with a librarian- not a part time clerk. She was very helpful but what both of these places do have in common is that they seem unfamiliar with the RA services their own libraries, consortiums or library systems. They have probably all heard of Novelist, but don't remember to use it. I think that the universal problem with all of the public libraries, is that they are trying to do too much with as little staff as possible, pay them next to nothing and rotate the librarians and get as much use out of them as possible.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you Jillian. Where I work, it's the clerks that help the patrons the most. Especially with any RA issues. We have 2 full time clerks, the rest are part time. We have one manager, a children's librarian and a reference librarian. One of them is always working, mainly so there's a "supervisor" in charge. The manager is very knowledgeable, however, she is bogged down with so much paperwork, it's sad. She hardly leaves her office. The other two are pretty swamped with everything else, which is why the clerks are front and center. So at my library there are usually 2 clerks and 1 librarian working at the same time. It can get pretty crazy. Our circ desk is large and almost obscures the reference desk near it. You can't even see it when you walk in. For us, it's not lack of interest in wanting to help someone, it's more lack of time. And definitely pay. ha
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