Happy New Year! I hope everyone had a great holiday season - I did. I’m just back from a wonderful Central American adventure with family and friends, a lovely bonding experience for us. During my vacation I found that I had not once worried about how things were going at home. News flash to Deb – You are not Type A! But more to the point, I know that the Sunnyvale Library has dedicated, talented staff here at all times.
The bloom of the vacation has worn off quickly though. Prepared for the day, knowing that I had a challenging meeting scheduled early on, things didn’t start off as well as I had hoped. I spilled café mocha on my clothes just minutes before my meeting with a library patron whom I believed had a problem to discuss with me. This was an unfortunate beginning for what I suspected would be a talk about double digit library fines!
Fines are sometimes an emotional issue for public, as well as for library staff members. From the staff perspective, many of us intensely dislike having to charge fines. After all, we are in the business of freely providing information and freely loaning materials. I, for one, have found myself trying to give information to people who have not even asked me for it.
Fines and fees are one approach to the business side of libraries, which requires that materials be returned on time in order for the system to work, and they help recover the cost of replacing materials that are not returned. At times, interferring in discussions about fines/fees between patrons and staff are special circumstances, human error and miscommunications. Dealing with library fines is NOT the fun part of being a librarian. Meeting and talking with library users often IS the fun or gratifying part, even in circumstances that are not the very best.
We renewed our commitment to excellent customer service at the beginning of this year. Sunnyvale Library management staff also agreed to “go the extra mile” whenever we could do so to address customer service issues. While we recognize that staff must adhere to policies and procedures, we also agreed to strive to better understand the library users' perspectives and look for opportunities to serve them. This was my opportunity. The library patron had asked for a meeting with me but had not specified the reason. I scouted around for a likely problem that this meeting could resolve. Identifying one possibility, staff and I discussed a potential approach to the topic just in case we were right about the purpose of the meeting. Having completed the research and changed my clothes, I was ready to meet our library user. Imagine my delight as we met and the patron said, “I am having a problem with my beloved library.” The day just got infinitely better…
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