Hi all,
Over the past few days, I've heard from a few of our end users here in
Massachusetts. They are people who don't typically post to the Evergreen
list, but they do subscribe to it and keep up with the discussions in
the community. We've always encouraged our end users to subscribe to
this list because we think it's important that they be informed of
Evergreen discussions. We also would like them to be active
participants in the community and in setting the future course for
Evergreen. I suspect that other Evergreen sites encourage there users to
subscribe to the list as well and, as a result, there is a whole slew
of end users lurking on these lists who we never hear from.
The end users who contacted me this week were frustrated with the tone
of some e-mails sent out as part of the discussion of problems with
checkins. Many of the e-mails in that thread were very thoughtful and
respectful as people identified potential problem points and described
how they worked through similar problems at their libraries. However,
some e-mails were laced with a bit of sarcasm and bordered on being
disrespectful towards the people who are using the system on a
day-to-day basis. The people I spoke to generally found that the tone
was dismissive of the concerns of end users.
Although it is rare for me to hear complaints about the tone of e-mails
on this list, I must admit it's not the first time I've noticed
dismissive comments made about users. Typically, I don't see these
comments on e-mail lists, but they are sometimes made in publicly-logged
communication channels. I don't see these comments as much as I did when
I first started working in the community, but they still come up from
time to time.
I thought it would be worthwhile to send out a reminder to everyone that
the e-mails on this list are read by all different types of people from
the Evergreen community from front-line staff working on the circ desk
to catalogers to the patrons served by our libraries. All of the
discussions on the list and in the IRC channel are publicly logged and
available for anyone to read.
We aren't always going to agree on what causes a problem or even agree
that a particular problem is important. However, when a concern is
raised, we do need to treat the people who have that concern, whether
they are the original poster of the question or a lurker who feels the
pain of the original question, with the respect we would expect to
receive if we were the ones who raised a concern. While sarcasm has its
time and place (and, believe me, I use sarcasm quite a bit, even if I
don't show it much around here), I don't think it's advisable to use it
when talking about the primary users of our software.
From the comments I've received, a result of that discussion was that
some end users a) felt undervalued and b) were less likely to
participate in future list discussions. I don't think we want to
discourage that kind of participation from our users. The more we hear
from them, the better position we are in to make Evergreen better for
everyone.
I love Evergreen, and I love the community that supports it. I truly
believe that no offense was intended in any of the e-mails that were
sent. I just request that everyone uses a little more care when
responding to concerns raised on this list.
Thank you,
Kathy
--
Kathy Lussier
Project Coordinator
Massachusetts Library Network Cooperative
(508) 343-0128
[email protected]
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/kmlussier
