Sampling our customers

Last week was Enquiry Sampling Week at Christchurch City Libraries. As librarians we count and categorise our customer interactions for one week. It comes round fairly regularly and provides statistical information for the library network. This got me thinking. What do tally marks really tell us about our interactions with customers?

I had two enquiries that show how diverse our interactions with customers can be. The first happened when a customer approached me holding a piece of paper with half an article printed on it.

Customer: I need a copy of this and I want the whole article.

Me: Can you tell me anything about the article?

Customer: I got it twenty years ago at the Central Library from a paper I think.

Hmmm … This would require my “super librarian” reference skills (aka detective work) so I dusted these off and got to work. The interaction involved many questions, clarifying, listening, searching the catalogue, asking for help, more questions, clarifying again, and finally ending with filling in an an online form to request an archive. I categorised this interaction as “Reference – more than 15 minutes” which did not seem to give the query the justice it deserved.

My second interaction happened at the self-returns kiosk, where customers return their own books. This was a new for the customer so I was talking her through the process.

Customer: This is easy, you’ll be soon out of a job.

Me (not feeling so super): Hmmm …

Luckily for me this particular query was just a tally mark!

 

 

Just ordered – professional titles

A quick plug for recently ordered titles (due to arrive in the next two to three months). There’s some updated editions of core texts, there’s information about RDA, there’s new reading about archives and digital curation. Get your reserves on. 

• Information Technology for Libraries by Jennifer Rowley.
• Introduction to Modern Information Retrieval (3rd ed.) by G. G. Chowdhury.
• More technology for the rest of us : a second primer on computing for the non-IT Librarian by Nancy Courtney. The second in this series. Find out about data curation, cloud computing and open source software.
• Archives : principles and practices by Laura Agnes Millar. Promoted as a good grounding in all things archive-related, from setting out contextual, strategic and operational archives issues; establishing principles, policies and procedures; managing day-to-day operations; caring for different types of archival materials; enhancing outreach and public access. Phew!
• Developing Library Leaders : a how-to-do-it manual for coaching, team building and mentoring library staff by Robert Stuart. New to leading a team? Want to know how to improve your coaching skills? Then this might be just the ticket.
• The Reader’s Advisory Handbook edited by Jessica Moyer and Kaite Stover. Want to hone your RA skills? Want to know how to cover all types of formats? Want to know how to adjust your style for different audiences?
• Introducing RDA : a guide to the basics by Chris Oliver. RDA is changing the face of cataloguing, make sure you understand what it means.
• Practical cataloguing : AACR, RDA and MARC21 by Anne Welsh and Sue Batley. Covers RDA, FRBR, FRAD. Unlock the acronyms.  
• Digital Curation : a how-to-do-it manual by Ross Harvey. An in-depth, start-to-finish explanation of the digital curation process, and including explanations of each step in the Digital Curation Centre’s (DCC) life-cycle model.

As a complete aside … the most popular library-related title at present is still This book is overdue.

Digitised primary resources for NCEA

For NCEA students, primary sources can be an important part of independent research assignments. For example in NCEA Level 3 History, students are asked to plan and carry out independent historical research on a particular subject, to include both Primary and Secondary sources.

Primary sources can loosely be defined as sources of information that provide first-hand accounts of events, practices, conditions or experiments at a particular point in time. Amongst the many examples of primary sources are manuscripts, oral histories, architectural drawings, maps, newspapers, original manuscripts, diaries, memoirs, letters, journals, photographs, drawings, posters, film footage, art works, sheet music, and songs.

Digitised resources can be a great help in the search for primary sources.

The CCL website is a good place to start. The Digitised Resources include:

• The H H Stevens War Diary , a World War l diary of Herbert Harold Stephens, of Sydenham, Christchurch.
• The Ballantynes Fire of 1947
• The Parker Hulme murder case

On the CCL Digitised resources page, a link to Matapihi allows you to search across the digital collections of different New Zealand organisations from one website.

Many Museums and Libraries have extensive digitised collections. The State Library of New South Wales has an interesting Manuscripts, Oral history and Pictures collection which includes Joseph Banks Endeavour Journal, written as he explored New Zealand with James Cook in 1769-1770.

The History Resource Centre contains the history of ancient civilisations through to the 20th Century integrating reference sources along with full-text articles from more than 100 academic journals, maps and images. It includes full-text and facsimile images for over 1,400 primary source documents.

Students are lucky. They can view endless primary sources without leaving home, with a library card and PIN.

Mary Edwards-Read
Info Centre

Reference Update 2010 February

Welcome to the new look Reference Update

February 2010 marks the first appearance of Reference Update on Bibliofile, with the following articles:

• Have you seen a * on Proquest?
• Browse Canterbury’s art past online
• Digitised primary resources for NCEA

From now on,  we’ll revert to the tradition of asking for contributions from the network. Editorial oversight of Reference Update content will remain with the Info Centre team.

We look forward to delivering Reference Update in this new way and eagerly anticipate receiving your contributions be they triumphant tales of reference encounters across the desk, tips and gems, book reviews or professional reading

Reference Update

This New Yorker article featured in the April edition of Reference Update.  While it looks at the checklists and protocols in the field of hospital patient  care, there may be general lessons that may be applied within a library setting.

The Checklist

What do you think? What sorts of checklists could be used in libraries to ensure that customers are getting the best service?