Creating the Customer‐driven Academic Library

Citation

Massis, B.E. (2009), "Creating the Customer‐driven Academic Library", New Library World, Vol. 110 No. 7/8, pp. 391-392. https://doi.org/10.1108/03074800910975223

Chapter One of this book opens as a challenge to academic libraries. It lays down the gauntlet of change as it demands that we reinvent the academic library or face the consequences (empty, irrelevant spaces and unnecessary programs and services.) Reinvention also demands the library retain its respected position as a significant and important institution on a college or university campus. Author Jeannette Woodward poses her question at the outset of the text when she asks in the book's introduction, “How must the library evolve if it is to remain relevant?” While not a panacea (since no one book could be one) the succeeding chapters present a comprehensive approach to responding to that theme.

Taking a real‐world approach, the author researched the book by visiting numerous academic libraries and interviewing key stakeholders along the way and recognizing that the library must “…look to their customers for answers.”

When our customers do look for answers, library designers must include them in their communications and understand their needs. Prior to the design, or re‐design of an academic library, stakeholders must indicate, not only their ideas for learning spaces based on their own learning styles and habits of library use, but must also include the “creature comforts” necessary to enhance the library, not only as learning space, but social space as well.

The author also counsels that it is imperative for library administrators and staff to recognize that when there is an access issue for students to programs, services and collections due to the inexperience of the students' use of the library, the library's response should not be to create or recreate the library space as some cold, impenetrable monolithic structure with who attributes include, “outdated signage”, “invisible staff, “empty, shadowy spaces” or “no information service desk” at the library entrance in order to provide proper directional assistance to students.

As a direct response to these issues, the author firmly suggests that, “…the most effective way to improve library or other services is to let customers participate in their development.” At the same time, the responsibility to “reinvent the academic library” is a dual one wherein the library staff also needs to re‐engineer itself in order to partner with its customers to create a two‐way communication matrix that is integral to ensure that the customers and the staff interactions can be effective. How can this be accomplished when, according to the author, “…academic libraries have been growing larger while academic library staff have been shrinking?”

The author suggests that, as a result of her many library visits, by creating multiple service desks on every floor of the library, by creating sense of “ownership” by the library staff for their own “small plot” within the library, by creating a friendly and welcoming atmosphere where the patrons are welcomed with eye contact and a smile, the librarian is fully equipped with all the tools he or she needs to perform their duties with maximum efficiency. All of these characteristics, and more, according to the author, define the customer‐driven academic library.

Special attention should direct the reader to the chapter on the “Information Commons,” today's one‐stop shop for integrated library services. In this chapter, the author details the areas necessary to create and implement what is fast becoming the teaching and learning space of choice for many academic libraries seeking to reinvent themselves as an increasingly popular model of service on campus.

Also, Ms Woodward provides in‐depth and valuable advice for the marketing of the academic library to the primary stakeholders both on and off campus. She also discusses the critical role that library staff plays in these marketing efforts and how a strong customer service ethic can pay large returns in the form of support and good will in the user community.

Ms Woodward writes from the perspective of an academic librarian of long standing who offers a great deal of practical advice by which this environment can be created, enhanced, reviewed and evaluated. She discusses many of the services most desired by today's college‐students including wireless access, more effective service areas, speed‐read email stations, multimedia access to equipment, computer workshops, roving staff, and many more. All of these suggestions, and many more, paint a portrait of the customer‐driven academic library's roadmap to success.

Finally, with this work, the author succeeds in offering a defining text for academic libraries considering their next strategic plan. As library administrators develop their ideas for the future within the ever‐changing landscape of stakeholders needs, this book can serve as a vital link between planning and implementing the reinvention of the academic library.