Some bad news came for two large retailers at the end of 2011. Sears Holding Corporation, the parent of Sears and K-Mart, announced that it would close 100-120 stores across the United States. With some 4,000 outlets, this amounts to just a small percentage of the total stores. Unlike most of our libraries, retail stores [...]

One of my job responsibilities at the Temple University Libraries is to serve as the official complaint department. That’s right. The complaints and suggestions are funneled to me. I investigate each one personally or will assign a staff member to look into it. We explore what went wrong and then work to resolve the problem [...]

Two things happened this past week that stood out for me as signposts that more librarians are becoming familiar with the user experience concept. It is mixed news. It is good that more librarians in all spheres of the profession are gaining awareness about library user experience. What is not so good are the signs [...]

When I want to share and explain the concepts of design thinking with an audience of librarians I often make use of the video “The Deep Dive.” It was originally an episode of Nightline shown in 1991, and it profiles the firm IDEO. In the program the IDEO folks are charged with redesigning a supermarket [...]

I’m hardly a gastronome. I’ll eat just about anything, and I’m happy with simple foods – anything from mac & cheese from the box to a grilled piece of fish tossed from the skillet to the plate. But at the ALA Midwinter Convention in Denver a vendor invited me to dinner. I could hardly decline [...]