Comments for Designing Better Libraries

Comment on What the Users Want: Guessing vs. Knowing by Hank Delcore

Hank Delcore — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 22:40:12 +0000

Thanks for covering the report we issued on Fresno State’s library (I’m one of the authors). I, like many others, sometimes use that supposed Henry Ford quote to make a point, but I use it to highlight the importance of ethnography (over interviews, surveys, focus groups) to innovation. Ethnography is not primarily about asking people anything – its emphasis is on naturalistic observation. Hence, good ethnography makes an end run around the incapacity of many to articulate, in words, the things that are failing them. It’s about actual user behavior.

Comment on Will What Worked For Groucho Work for Libraries by T Scott

T Scott — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 21:05:05 +0000

That’s the LIBRARIAN’S niche. As long as we keep thinking that the issue is how to keep the LIBRARY relevant and well-positioned we will continue to miss seeing the tremendous opportunities before us.

Comment on Fidelity = The Totality Of The Experience by Designing Better Libraries » Will What Worked For Groucho Work for Libraries

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 15:41:49 +0000

[...] librarians have found themselves in as the type of experience the users want has shifted to low fidelity, high convenience. As it exists today the library experience is best described as mostly high [...]

Comment on Want To Be An Innovator? Put Up Your Antennae! by Designing Better Libraries » What the Users Want: Guessing vs. Knowing

Designing Better Libraries » What the Users Want: Guessing vs. Knowing — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 22:50:35 +0000

[...] information is gathered by asking shoppers what they do while some comes from direct observation. In a previous post I pointed to the importance of learning about users from listening to and observing them; I related [...]

Comment on Do Library Staff Know What The Users Want? by Kathy Dempsey

Kathy Dempsey — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 00:15:46 +0000

This study proves yet again the importance of “true marketing,” which always begins with studying users (and nonusers) and learning what they want and expect from you.

Libraries that make it a priority to listen to users (as Molly’s and Cheryl’s admirably do) will experience less of a disconnect. I don’t need any more studies to tell me that!

I have a chart showing the Cycle of True Marketing on my website at librariesareessential.com/library-marketing-resources/cycle-of-true-marketing. It follows standard business-improvement and practices.

Comment on Do Library Staff Know What The Users Want? by Cheryl Bryan

Cheryl Bryan — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 17:37:25 +0000

Having conducted many user information forums as part of libraries long range planning efforts I think your responses are on target here. If the disparity were between “user services” and ‘internal functions” that would be a problem; but when the disparity is between focus on creating a good user experience and using the library’s resources that seems only natural to me. Another thing I’ve noticed is that survey respondents often consider what is expected of them-academic library users might feel “smarter” if their focus is on research content access.

Comment on Do Library Staff Know What The Users Want? by » Comparing Service Priorities Between Staff and Users in ARL Member Libraries

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 22:54:30 +0000

[...] via Designing Better Libraries [...]

Comment on Do Library Staff Know What The Users Want? by Noa K

Noa K — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 18:31:04 +0000

I had the same response as Andromeda (after reading the article). If the usual is great service, one might take it for granted and not see it as a priority. Look, too, at the library staff “moderately low” priority score to providing “printed library materials” and “electronic information resources.” I can imagine the staffers’ bias, “Collection development? That’s a given — we’re adding value with great service.”

Comment on Do Library Staff Know What The Users Want? by Molly Raphael

Molly Raphael — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 05:33:53 +0000

It’s interesting to see how often we can see parallel issues in different types of libraries. The questions that the LibQUAL survey addressed highlight how our best intentions as library staff can send us on a detour when we try to address user priorities. In the public library world, we have been doing outreach to underserved populations, with the goal of transforming the lives of populations we want to serve. In my own experience, we decided to undertake some research to learn what some immigrant communities thought was most important of the services we had to offer. We used focus groups and interviews with community leaders in three immigrant populations: Chinese, Vietnamese, and Russian. What we learned from that research made us totally change the way we purchased materials and planned programs and services. The shift, which took time and also involved hiring bilingual/bicultural staff, resulted in making real connections with these parts of the population of our county.

Comment on Do Library Staff Know What The Users Want? by Andromeda

Andromeda — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 02:03:52 +0000

I have to wonder (not, I admit, having read the article) if user priorities may not be so much an expression of users’ highest values but of the things they have experienced as most lacking — and thus might be in an inverse relationship with librarians’ values…That is, if librarians value affective elements highly, perhaps they do such a good job with them that users never really notice a problem with them, so there isn’t an insistent voice in their heads saying “man, I wish librarians were nicer”. Perhaps if these librarians focused more on information and less on affect, we’d find that user priorities shifted in reverse… (Guess this is why baselines and longitudinal studies are nice.)