First " Other Works" Then "Memories", Bridging Personal Life With Work Life

Art, art and more art, is there anything else to life? I absolutely love art. You probably would not have guessed that by looking at me. As a young kid I was obsessed with being a cartoonist. As a teen I played Classical, Latin and Jazz saxophone. In my twenties and thirties my thing was filmmaking and photography. Now, I prefer painting as a form of expression. It is quite clear to me that I have been an artist all my life.

Two years ago I had the absolute pleasure of working with an unbelievably talented team of library employees; Paula De Stepfano, Melitte Buchman, Gary Speziale,and Dan Lega,on the first library wide art show “Other Works.” Together we identified and gathered some very talented creative folks working in this organization. Had it not been for the art show we probably would have never known that there are so many artists amongst us. Access services were well represented in “Other Works.” Dan Lega, Maria Moraitis, Gary Speziale and I all participated in the show. One of the art pieces from the show created by Melissa Gasparotto is still on display in the stairwell on LL2. Take a look at this slide show from the opening reception: http://tinyurl.com/yh25ly8

One aspect of the strategic plan has to do with community building and staff morale. The Art Show embraced both of those aspects. Basically, our first art show was an outstanding event and it made the entire library proud.

The second library art show “Memories” is now being curated and once again we have an outstanding team on board. Melitte Buchman, Kristin deNeeve, Heidi Frank, Gary Speziale, and yours truly are doing absolutely great work and having a lot of fun doing it. It’s almost like lightening has struck twice in the same place and for me it is very exciting being part of this endeavor. Creative artists working for the library are coming forward and committing themselves to exhibiting their work in the show.

We are excited to have a guest curator, Professor Ann Chwatsky, coordinator of the Art and Media program at the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, Department of Art and Art Professions. Ann is an internationally recognized photographer who curates the gallery space at the Wagner Graduate school of Public Service at NYU. We have also expanded the show this time to include performance art and the spoken word. If you are not yet in the show and you wish to be, there is still a little time left. Contact Ted Lawton at tl1@nyu.edu.

Mark your calendars folks. This years’ art show opens May 26th 2010. A reception will be held in the Tracy/Barry Gallery. Bobst - Fales library - 3rd floor.

A few Random Thoughts from Vacation

Yes, it's my first day of "vacation." I'm taking off a few days to move, and as it turns out, today isn't one of them. I came into the office this morning to tie up a few loose ends and make sure I didn't return to my usual disaster-area of a desk. Here it is the early afternoon, and I still have 2 things on my to do list.

I'm glad I was here, though, because Gary just popped his head in my office to ask if it was OK to waive $250 in fines. The user's mother got in touch with us to take care of these fines. The user is on a medical leave from school. I'm assuming the mom didn't show a doctor's note, which is why Gary ran this by me. What I loved about this was that Gary said, "I have no reason not to believe her." Right on, Gary. Waive those fines!

On a sad note, yesterday Moxa closed. The business was subject to a large rent increase and although Dave and Georgia tried to negotiate with the landlord, it didn't work out. They decided it wouldn't make business sense to stay in that location. They are looking for another location in the neighborhood, but until they find one, I'll need to find a new coffee place. Someplace with good decaf (usually it's cold in this city) that gives a discount for reusable mugs. You all are the coffee shop experts now. Any suggestions?

Got Class?

This past week some of us in Access Services had the opportunity to take a Microsoft Access class taught by an excellent instructor from SCPS. There were attendees from a number of departments including Stacks, Circulation, Reserve, and Library Privileges. And, despite the need for some of us on the late shift having to adjust to the early morning start time, everyone learned something from the four days of classes.

With the instructor catering to both novices and advanced users everyone received personal attention and assistance during the hands on course. Some people did not know if this particular software program would be helpful for their work while others left with a good foundation of skills that they can use daily. One thing, however, is true for everyone: finding new solutions to existing problems is a challenge we all face every day and learning new skills and technologies are vital to future success.

Professional development courses are something that NYU encourages employees to take advantage of but many people find it difficult with busy work and home life schedules. This particular course was taught right here in Bobst Library making it easy for people to participate. With the good turn out and positive feedback the outlook for future opportunities like this is bright.



Looking for learning opportunities?

Login to iLearn via NYUHome

or

For Continuing Education courses:
http://www.scps.nyu.edu/

Access Service Excellence and Freedom of Information

For the last seven or eight years, I have spent most of my winter holidays in Eastern Europe. The countries of Eastern Europe are interesting and beautiful for their ancient pasts and natural features, and also for their more recent history as former communist countries.

I don't want to get into my own politics here, but I will say that regardless of my feelings towards Communism in theory, I - like most people - do have a problem with how it has been applied in practice in most places so far, where corruption has run rampant, and people have been forced into nominal equality through fear and through the governments' limiting of access to knowledge and information.

This winter, I visited the Baltic States. One of the places I saw was Grūtas Park, in southern Lithuania. Here is a picture I took of the small "Library" display inside one of the Park's indoor museum areas:



I've seen a lot of libraries, but this "representational" library, with its propaganda and purposefully limited selection, made me think a lot about how the Soviets were so successful in the sciences, and in the technical arts, but did not allow for much individual expression, and blocked any studies that might have a negative affect on peoples' view of the State. This included all sorts of arts and literature, as well as things like sociology, psychology, you name it. And how can any culture truly be deemed successful, or at least advancing apace, when it does not have those things?

So, what does all of this have to do with Access Services? Everything!
Something so fundamental to our work, but that is nonetheless easy to forget in our day-to-day working activities, is that we are professionally responsible for facilitating access to knowledge and information.

In 2010, we tend to take free access for granted. We have the internet, we have a vast network of libraries; we have among our patrons undergraduate students who had not yet been born when the Soviet Union was dissolved!

Now that we all feel very old (ahem!), we should think about what this means for us, especially in terms of Service Excellence. As we serve our patrons, helping them get the materials that they need, we should always keep in the back of our minds the idea that this freedom - both the patrons' freedom to seek knowledge, and the library workers' freedom to help grant access to that knowledge - was not always thus, and in some parts of the world remains elusive still.

So, that's my two cents. Now, where will I go next year....

Service Understanding/Understanding Service

During the January all-Access meeting, Sharon Thomas brought up an interesting point: she said she thought that providing service in a library is different from providing service in a coffee shop. At the time I asked her to "hold that thought," and indicated that I'd like to hear what she had to say on that at the next meeting, after she had observed at a coffee shop.

Well, both Sharon and I forgot about this, but we did have a chance to talk last week. She explained that she felt that when someone goes into a coffee shop, both the customer and the staff share an understanding of the interaction. There's not a lot of variability in what's expected by either party. But, using LP as the example, an alum of NYU may approach the desk with the understanding that as an alum s/he can still use Bobst. This is quite different from our policies, and conflict arises.

This blew my mind. Honestly, the idea of disconnect in common understanding never occurred to me, but of course this is an issue. When I go into McDonalds, I pretty much know what I'm getting myself into. I know what they have to offer and that's why I walked in the door. People walk through our doors misunderstanding what we offer on a daily basis. It would be like someone walking into a McDonalds and looking for a filet mignon on the dollar menu. A contract exists between server and served, and at a restaurant or store it's pretty much clear to both parties. In academic libraries, not so much.

So, what can we do about this? Certainly, simply being aware of this disconnect will help us all to bridge the gap i understanding that can challenge service excellence. As we all uncovered during our coffee shop observation, avoiding jargon, being open to questions and improving our communication with users on our signs, brochures, website, etc. can go a long way. We all have a responsibility to suggest areas of improvement when we see them. How can we help to build common understanding between library staff and library users?

Coffee Shop Review

During our staff meeting today had a great discussion of the various components that make up good customer service, and those elements that we feel contribute to a negative service experience. These characteristics came up in the context of observing the service we received at 4 local coffee shops. Here's how Access Services defines good and bad service:

Good Service Includes

• Pleasant small talk with customers
• Staff camaraderie
• Respecting customers' time
• Teamwork (filling in each other's knowledge gaps)
• Courtesy
• Helpfulness
• Asking clarifying questions
• Explaining jargon
• Displaying a positive attitude
• Providing consistent service
• Being flexible and treating each situation individually

Less than adequate service includes:

• Lack of familiarity with products and services offered
• Snobby attitude
• Not taking suggestions for improvement graciously (or seriously)
• Rushing customers
• Judging customers
• Lack of eye contact
• Offering a poor product
• Lack of consistency
• Staff distracting each other
• Not being receptive to user questions
• A process that breaks down
• Service providers slowing the pace when things are less busy (don't respect customers' time)
• Lack of camaraderie between co-workers

I think that we have worked together to uncover a pretty great blueprint for providing excellent service.

Who made my day?

Posted on Twitter:

"I cut your late fines in half because you like Down." - guy working at NYU @bobstlibrary. Where academia and metal meet, there is love!"

I LOVE this tweet for a several reasons.

First of all, the library administration--from supervisors clear up through the Dean--encourages staff to waive up to $50 in fines just to make someone's day. Even if there isn't a compelling reason. I feel that this particular freedom is underutilized by circ staff as a tool for creating good will, so I'm glad to see that it was used, very successfully used, in this instance.

I also love that it got out there on Twitter, creating a ripple effect of good will. This patron has 166 followers who all know that not only is Bobst understanding about fines, we're cool! (OK, as an old fart librarian maybe I shouldn't be so quick to claim coolness,, but the person who waived these fines is definitely cool, and that person represents the library. There's some "coolness by extension" there.)

Lastly, I love this tweet because my boss monitors what people tweet about Bobst, so it makes me look pretty good in my superior's eyes.

Who was this "guy working @ NYU bobstlibrary?" who made my day? It was Wes Wambold. Well done Wes. Thanks for making this patron's day and my day.