From: hiscrp@nuscc.nus.sg (C R Pennell)
Subject: A READER COMMENTS
Organization: National University of Singapore
Date: Sun, 4 Oct 1992 03:47:08 GMT



     I found this list by accident: I hit the enter bar while
scrolling though the USENET list on our mainframe, trying to get
somewhere else. Once in, I decided to see what it was all about,
since I am a user of University libraries. I must admit I found it
rather disturbing - or at least the level of antagonism that some
of the participants feel towards library users. The underlying
assumption of a great many of these comments is that it is
impossible for the user or administrator to be right and the
circulation desk staff to be wrong. People who refuse, for whatever
reason to give their Social Security numbers, are labelled "jerks"
by one librarian. Maybe they are a bit paranoid, maybe they are
being pursued by vindictive ex-spouses, who knows? But they
presumably have a right not to give their SS number - so why is
EVERYONE who exercises that right automatically labelled a "jerk".
There are other comments which disturb me too: that "circ is like
combat" references to "cannon-fodder", "battle" etc. 
     Because it is perceived as a war it means that on-one can ever
back down: "Forcing a staff-member to apologize is inexcusable" is
one aspect of this attitude: the other is a grudging acceptance
that higher-up people in the library may have to apologize, to keep
the peace (but not because something may have actually gone wrong)
Does this mean that staff members NEVER do anything wrong, are
never off-hand, unhelpful, rude. Sometimes an apology IS in order
because a reader has been badly treated, and the person who should
do the apologising is precisely the person who made the mistake:
otherwise you WILL get users gloating about their victory. At the
very least if a senior person makes an apology, let it be a genuine
one. It's a matter of psychology: if a reader feels angry, slighted
etc that reader is going to be itchy next time round: and, equally
obviously, the same will apply to the person on the other side of
the desk. One contributor described how some users have come back
to apologize the next day: they presumably felt guilty about going
over the top - but the general sense of the contributors is that WE
should never apologise - it's always someone else's fault.
     Story time: A few years ago I was a visiting fellow at a large
Ivy-League university in the States (no names, no pack-drill). The
library had a special building for examining rare books with slip
that were filled in by hand, giving a top copy and two carbon
copies. Some of the call numbers were quite long (10
number/figures) and it mattered whether letters were in capitals or
lower-case. The system was (as far as I remember) that the reader
kept the bottom carbon, the top carbon was kept at the desk, and
the top copy went down to the stacks for the person finding the
book. Inevitably mistakes were made: I occasionally (once a week or
so) got the wrong book because the book-finder had misread the
number, and on occasion I - and other readers - made a mistake too.
On one occasion I got a number wrong, but the book turned up O.K.
Unfortunately the desk staff left the original top copy in the book
when they handed it to me and I was able to read the comment on the
slip written by the book-finder "Tell this stupid ******* ***** to
get his ******* number right." I thought about this for a time, and
I got to feeling more and more annoyed by the attitude underlying
it. As I was friendly with one of the desk-staff I went over to
her, handed her the note, and said I felt a bit dirty to be on the
receiving end of such vituperative language. She handled the
situation so well that it has stayed with me. First she said she
took my point that even though it was a mistake I had seen the
slip, the attitude that lay behind the comment was pretty
unpleasant: not only arrogant, but in the choice of language
disgraceful: even if the reader was not intended to see it, other
staff members were and SHE felt insulted by being the intended
recipient of such obscenity. She then said, I could make a formal
complaint, in which case the student-assistant concerned would
probably be chucked out (there had been other complaints about him
too), or I could leave her to tell him what she thought of him
rather bluntly. That is what I did - and being the person she was
she probably shredded him. Why did this behaviour work so well:
because my complaint wasn't treated as unreasonable, on the
contrary she made me feel that I Was important, and defused a
situation which could have blown up very nastily if either of us
had let it.
     That surely is the point: that both sides have to work
together to defuse situations which look threatening. But if people
go in with am "I am going into battle" mentality then battles ARE
more likely to arise. That is why conflict-avoiding strategies are
so successful: keeping a box of tissues handy for readers who get
a sudden attack of air-con-induced sneezing makes a lot of friends:
THAT'S why it is important, not because they snuffle (unpleasant
though that is) And there is a very simple way of ending the fines-
for-faculty argument. Don't fine them. Instead have your computer
set up so that when they reach a certain number of reminders to
return books (these can be generated automatically, I'd have
thought) the computer simply refuses to release any more books to
them until the overdue ones are returned. This works 90% of the
time (and show me a system that works 100% of the time!) It is
completely impersonal - "I'm sorry, Professor, I'm not a
programmer, so I can't over-rule the computer" AND it means that
staff trying to run the show according to the rules don't feel
undermined when senior colleagues break the rules for their senior
friends. That really does stink! Why let people bring in briefcases
if it causes trouble: provide lockers with keys outside - deposit
on keys? and then say no bags. In other words defuse situations
before they arise.
     I am sure I'm going to get flamed a. for teaching my
grandmother to suck eggs b. because there certainly ARE unusually
difficult people around (but bear in mind, everyone has bad days)
c. I'm a reader, not a librarian, so I shouldn't be commenting on
this list anyway. But I have seen a number of different university
library systems - in Britain, in Kenya, in Turkey and in Singapore
as well as the USA. They all seem to function in much the same way,
and it is clear that the ones which work best are those which have
counter staff who are friendly: EVERYONE makes mistakes, everyone
can, or should be able to, admit it. But to see the relationship in
terms of war is really counter-productive.


Richard Pennell, History, National University of Singapore {which
has an EXCELLENT library BTW}
 
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.circplus