Kathy, Thanks for posting this. I will say, if anything I said was offensive, I apologize. I second the comment, "I love Evergreen, and I love the community that supports it."
On Wed, Apr 16, 2014 at 3:36 PM, Kathy Lussier <kluss...@masslnc.org> wrote: > 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 > kluss...@masslnc.org > Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/kmlussier > > -- Ruth Frasur Director of the Historic(ally Awesome) Hagerstown - Jefferson Township Library 10 W. College Street in Hagerstown, Indiana (47346) p (765) 489-5632; f (765) 489-5808 Our Kickin' Website <http://hagerstownlibrary.org> Our Rockin' Facebook Page <http://facebook.com/hjtplibrary> and Stuff I'm Reading<http://pinterest.com/hjtplibrary/ruth-reads/>