On 10/23/06, Jim Devine <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
On 10/23/06, Mark Lause <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> All this customer BS is pure corporate BS. Almost each and every time some
> monstrously large institution announces that the new politics are to make it
> "more welcoming and less intimidating," you have to figure that they're
> reemphasizing talk and planning to ignore your needs.
>
> As part of our "new" student-as-customer library service, the institution
> just cut staffing a bit more than 20%. After years of having to work the
> bugs out of the IDs, it finally got them working...so they threw them out
> and assigned everybody spiffy new IDs, which you aren't given but have to
> contact the library to get. And, not having enough people to staff the
> place, they have a spiffy new phone tree.
FWIW, our situation is different. More and more books flow into the
library, because an old lady died -- and even though no-one had heard
of her -- gave big bucks to it. Of course, we don't have enough space
in the library, so the older books went into storage. A new library --
one that's "customer-friendly" and Barnes & Nobles-esque -- is
promised but they haven't broken the ground yet. It looks like they'll
actually build it, which is better than the two previous "new
libraries" that were supposed to be built. The good news is that the
old library was customer-friendly in another way: the guy who gave the
money insisted on being involved in the architecture (as usual) so
there was a big atrium that wasted a lot space that could have been
used for books. The skylights leak water, while the fountain (in a
library!) put more water vapor into the air, none of which was good
for the books... It looks like the new library will be an improvement
over that, and also over the threat implied by the words of one of the
Trustees: "why do we need a library when we've got the Internet?"
a couple of you have already responded on the rhetorical and corporate
aspects of the student-as-customer and the "welcoming" library. but i
feel the need to chime in on jim's point above, which relates directly
to the issue where i am now. we also had an old lady die and leave
*the library* tons of money. but now they have merged the library with
IT, which essentially makes that money IT money. we are not buying
more books or journals. we are not renovating the library. and now the
*library staff* is taking up their time handling IT requests (like
registering computers, for example). we already have not enough money
for books and journals, and our staff is already way behind with
cataloging the miserable collection we do have. but instead, they are
now also IT staff. and of course, we don't need books, any more,
because can't students get everything they need online? i mean, who
needs books when you have wikipedia?
i've heard people around here talk more than once about how students
don't want books in their library, but they and especially parents
want the building there. they want the paper, but not the education.
indeed the students, at least here, seem mainly to want the party
their parents are paying for (although here that's quite a bit less
than $45k/yr). of course that's a generalization, but it is not
reaching too far.
beyond that, of course i like the idea of hanging out in the library.
the corporate part of it is, hey, you know, people hang out at B&N and
they pick up a few books. so if we make the lib a place to hang out,
kids will pick up books and start learning. i don't buy it.
j
--
http://brainmortgage.blogspot.com/
