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How is everyone today? Does anyone want to chat, or vent, or list what they're excited about?
I am interested to know what my new job title will be. Some of the titles in Career Tracks are pretty sweet! (I was hoping for Project Technician Prime, but that doesn't seem to be a thing.)
Your group has already had a meeting with your supervisor about the realignment. What did you take away from that?
We learned that 10 years ago we competed with book stores, which cater to the browser; but these days we need to compete with Amazon, which does not. We learned that although market penetration has gone from 24% to 32%, member retention has only gone from 33% to 34%. Aaaand those are all the notes I took. Fortunately, my supervisor is always available and proactively initiates further discussion with her people, so I have ample opportunity to catch up on anything I missed :)
We had a lively debate on the need for a call center. We learned that library staff spends a lot of time on the phone answering general questions, and that this burden falls disproportionately on staff at libraries with names early in the alphabet. The call center will be a great help in allowing library staff to spend more time helping members who are physically in the building.
The most important thing I think our group took away is reassurance. Everyone will have a job, if they want one. And everyone will have the chance to give some input as to what they would like to do. It was a good meeting, as are all our meetings. We have a lot of fun here.
I can remember when some people thought we needed to be MORE LIKE bookstores, and I'm glad those people didn't win, since bookstores are rare now and we're still doing great. We don't have to be more like Amazon in every way, either. Their cataloging is TERRIBLE! And our ILL works better than theirs too, ha ha! Have you ever tried to get Amazon to track down a book that has only ever been held in New Zealand--for free?
Anyway but also it is good that we have a bigger digital collection than we used to, and people are using it at 2 a.m. on Sunday while eating waffles in their underpants.
AND it is good that we serve traditional users as well. Metro is the best!
Now we all know what you eat at 2 a.m. on Sundays.
It is essential that we remember that we did not survive longer than bookstores by doing the same things the same way as we had in the past; and that being like bookstores was not completely a bad idea-- some of the best things we now do we learned from them. And so it is that we must learn from Amazon-- what our members like about it, and how can we give them something similar.
It is also important to remember that in the end, libraries and bookstores-- in any form-- serve different functions. Of course bookstore "cataloging" is terrible when compared to library catalogs-- it is not intended to be used in the same way.
Realistically, I would love to see libraries look at bookstores as a complement to us, rather than as a competitor.