Responses to 8 Common Myths and Misconceptions about Roving

“Stand up to your obstacles and do something about them. You will find that they haven’t half the strength you think they have.” -Dr. Norman Vincent Peale. 1898-1993, Pastor, Speaker and Author

In response to numerous requests, I am going to describe the 8 most common myths or misconceptions about Roving, and reveal some practical truths about them. I first identified and published answers for them about 6 years ago, and have found that these concerns are still troubling many Library Managers and Staff today (unless, of course, they have learned to dispel them by attending one of our “Pro-active Service and Roving workshops ). In the next 8 posts, I will share the best answers to these common issues, including the best ideas raised by over a thousand Library Managers and Staff in our workshops in Canada, The U.S., Australia and New Zealand.

A Few Caveats:

My first caveat about this “myth-busting” series is that with Roving …one size does not fit all, and therefore, it is possible that any one (or more) of  the responses may not exactly fit your Library.  The second caveat is to stop and think about these things from the perspective of your patrons / customers. The third caveat is a request for readers to not “extrem-ize”  any of the responses or ideas. I know that’s not a word (!) – but I sometimes find that when people worry, they often imagine applying something new in extreme ways, until it is entirely unsuitable, and then dismiss any truth or wisdom from the idea completely. Roving is BOTH an “ART” and a “SCIENCE” and it is only by taking a “middle path”,  using  your best judgment, keeping an open mind, that the best approaches will be found. Final Caveat…I sometimes use the word “customers” instead of “patrons”. This is not a mistake…it is simply a better term to reflect the fact that Library patrons are truly now “customers”… in that they have far more choices than in the past as to where to “shop” for their information or entertainment (and that is a subject for a whole other discussion another day!). And although you might say – Hey – Library patrons don’t buy anything…because Library services are “free”…when you think carefully about it, they pay with their taxes, their fines, their time, their gas or transit fare to get there…so you might say they are “pre-paid customers”. (I think Joan Frye Williams first coined that phrase…)

So here they are, the “8 Common Myths / Misperceptions About Roving” as identified in our Library workshops over the past 7-8 years. I will “bust” each of them individually, over the next 8 posts.

  1. Myth: “Getting few complaints means our service is good.”
  2. Myth: “We’re already busy”
  3. Misconception: “We already care about customers, so we don’t need to do anything differently.”
  4. A) Myth: “Patron’s will hate it.” B) Associated Myth: “We can ‘do’ roving without any special training.” C) Associated myth: “Roving means we have to approach and talk to every patron, even disturbing those who are obviously happy.”
  5. Myth: “Roving can only be done when there are two or more people staffing the desk. You can’t leave the desk empty.”
  6. Misconception: “Roving really hampers our ability to get our work done.”
  7. Misconception: “When it is slow and yet we can’t go back to sit at the desk, then I feel that Roving aimlessly is a waste of my time.”
  8. Misconception: “If I rove and get a lot of “No’s” to my offers to assist, then my roving was a failure.”

I’ll deal with each of these  8 Myths/Misperceptions  starting with #1 in the next post!

STAY TUNED!