Retail reference
Following up on yesterday’s post about what to call library patrons: calling them customers might signal not only a shift in perceptions, but a downgrading of the actual service delivered. In “Minding the Retail Reference Gap” (Library Journal, May 15, 2006), Kaetrena Davis points out that libraries, unlike retail establishments, are interested not in profits but in helping people. The quick answer, or the answer that satisfies the patron, she says, might not be the best answer or the one that will benefit the patron the most in the long run.
I hesitate to make another comparison to the medical profession, but I read a lot of health care news at work, so I am citing what is familiar to me outside of library science. In “Role of patient satisfaction” (Physician’s News Digest, December 2003), Christopher Guadagnino presents opposing viewpoints on patient satisfaction surveys. Some view health care as a service industry and place high value on patient satisfaction measures for everything from staff training to HMO reimbursements. Others argue that patient satisfaction cannot be used as an overall measure of care quality because patients do not fully understand clinical procedures.
To make a comparison to another service-oriented profession, do course evaluations present a true measure of teaching effectiveness?
For libraries, I think customer satisfaction is important, but it should not be the only goal of library service. Of course we want our patrons to be satisfied with our services—but we want them to be truly satisfied, armed with information and connections that will help them, not just believing that they are satisfied. Calling them customers places too much importance on simplistic measures of satisfaction and not enough on whether libraries are truly providing quality services.
I recently joined a CSA program. Basically, I am a customer of the farm. I pay a subscription fee, and in return I get fresh produce every week. But I’ve noticed that the farmers call me a member, not a customer. The word choice changes my expectations about my experience at the farm, and helps me appreciate why joining a CSA is so different from shopping for vegetables at the supermarket—just as asking a question at a library reference desk is so different from buying a book at a bookstore. Calling me a member encourages me to volunteer at the farm, too. Customers do not generally volunteer, but patrons do, so libraries that rely on community support or volunteer labor should be especially reluctant to go too far down the retail path.
