Customized Workshops & Services for Libraries
Library Roving Service
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Is this an indication of future roving service to come? In a great article in her blog Library Webhead *, Sharon Clapp describes her positive reactions to the pro-active, roving customer service provided at Apple stores – including instant check-out on the spot with the roving Apple staff member. Sharon speculates on the use of a similar service in Libraries and concludes, “So imagine what this means for libraries. The next big thing won’t just be roving reference, but roving circulation! We’d better limber up & get used to being proactive in our customer service skills, introducing ourselves and offering to help.”
We couldn’t agree more. For those Libraries who have already embraced and implemented Roving and Roving reference successfully we’d like to say, “Congratulations! Well done! Roving Circulation/check out may be a wonderful future enhancement to what you are already doing!” To those Libraries who are considering roving, or have not quite yet made it a fundamental part of their service – “You’re on the right track…but the bar for pro-active service and roving is continually being raised. You may want to consider picking up the pace a little.”
See the whole article at http://librarywebhead.blogspot.com/2010/08/not-just-roving-reference-roving.html
*Library Webhead is the blog of “a Librarian who focuses on web technologies…She also highlights some of the latest trends in Web development and Libraries.”
I know many Libraries have been trying out roving and making it part of their excellent service model. Here’s a good idea I came across on the Central New Jersey Library webpage. I love this ”pro-active” announcement, featured in their “Local Events” section, which alerts patrons to their upcoming roving service. It is great for patrons to know why staff seem to be “wandering around” the Library or approaching them. It is also very helpful to roving staff when at least some patrons are are expecting to be approached! Here is the announcement from the Central New Jersey Library web page, announcing roving at the John F. Kennedy Library. And Kudos to the library for supplying Apple iPads for roving staff!
“Through August. Staff will roam around the library to help you look up books, DVDs, CDs or other items and point you in the right direction, or reserve an item immediately on their new Apple iPad or a nearby desktop computer.”By now, most librarians agree that the role of the library is changing, and that e-journals and e-books are poised to turn the library building into study space and librarians into e-sherpas, and many academic libraries have begun moving in that direction. This interesting article appearing in USA Today 06/09/2010, describes how the Welch Library at Johns Hopkins University is pioneering what I would call a “a radical roving” approach. Two years from now, the medical library at Johns Hopkins, a world leader in medical research, will have realized a “distributed” library model, which the article calls “A library located everywhere, and nowhere.” Not only in the sense that every researcher’s computer can access the library’s website and its vaults of electronic journal articles and e-books, but in that library personnel are embedded in various departments to work with researchers on their own turf. Many Academic Libraries have adopted some forms of this model in the past, however, what’s different is that the Welch Library ”will be “recycling” much of its print collection, and storing other books offsite; faculty and students will be able to send away for the hard copies via snail mail — like ordering a DVD from Netflix.”
Read more at http://tiny.cc/embedded_Librarians
A bit different than the Roving skills I teach in my workshops. I wonder – How can we support or help this effort? Are there any Libraries “adopting” this project or others like it?
Click here to watch “Library On A Donkey” on YouTube, or copy and paste url: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQMh8_TD2dI )
Many of our Library clients ask what tools they can use while roving. Here are some interesting and useful opitions:
From Justine Shaffner, the Librarian is IN, comes this from her post New Roving Reference and Assistive Technology Tools:
“Back in the days when libraries weren’t quite so busy, if I didn’t have a constant stream of questions at the reference desk, I’d get bored and start trawling the stacks for people who looked confused. I was delighted when we got a tablet computer as I no longer had to drag the patron over to a PAC or run between them and my computer for call numbers and answers. Having the internet with me at all times helped a lot when I needed to show the customer searching the art books for Van Gogh’s Starry Night how easily she could find it on Google Images, but while I could see the same catalog interface as our patrons, there wasn’t a way in to the staff side of our materials database. That put a damper on my speed as quick, powerful searches and circulation functions still had to be done from the reference desk.
So I was intrigued by three of the products in the May/June 2009 issue of Public Libraries. EnvisionWare now has a LibraryPDA(TM) that can evidently do all staff side functions (plus inventory).
And for those of you with a SirsiDynix ILS, there’s Horizon PocketCirc 1.0 with functions similar to the LibraryPDA but with remote access also available, so you no longer have to write down titles and barcodes while checking out books at a school, offsite program or town event.”
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