Customers services.
Customers services at our cities' public libraries need continuing
improvement with more staff development opportunities and continuing
supervisory programs.

Teaching library.
Our cities' public libraries could be teaching libraries for the
library, archival, records management and information policy
professions in the same way medical centers are teaching hospitals
with many professional seminars and rounds as well as introducing
students to the professions, promoting the growth and development of
that interest.

Transparency.
Cultivating interest could begin with backstage behind the scenes
transparency demonstrating how our public libraries do what they do to
make available the people and the services and the books and the
materials.

Backstage behind the scenes.
For example, how about web based online tours backstage
behind the scenes at our Cambridge Public Library!

Difficulties in rendering customers services.
a. Mean intimidating customers services
      In Massachusetts at our Cambridge Public Library one of the
      librarians outwardly follows Reference Desk protocols but goes
      about it in a intimidating mean manner with library
      users/clientele/consumers .

      Hurtles. Alternatives.
      A teen approaches the Reference Desk librarian. Instead of
      information with hints, tips and pointers directing and inspiring
      the kid's navigation of the resources available the complicated
      response from the librarian served to describe a task that was more
      of an obstacle for the kid in a discouraging manner and in a loud
      manner calling the attention of other people in the room to the
      reference transaction.

      How well does this response serve you?
      What we need are reference desk librarians who always ask toward
      the end of a transaction how well does this response to your
      enquiry serve you?...

      Feedback. Concerns. Suggestions. Critique.
      There needs to be multiple ways, multiple channels for continuing
      feedback to our Cambridge Public Library that do not intimidate so
      that the feedback reflects all the pros and cons of experiences
      using the services.

b. Bureaucratizing customers services
      Another CPL librarian frequently recounts a litany of what you
      can't do, what isn't allowed, what isn't available, all the
      negatives as if that type of information is helpful. Bureaucratic
      responses build hurtles instead of breaking down those hurtles with
      hints, tips and pointers about alternatives techniques for
      navigating our library systems' resources' limitations.

cc:
Public Library Department
http://cambridgema.gov/cpl
M Amorosi
M Freed

Public Library Department Board
http://cambridgema.gov/cpl/about/trust.html
J Axelrod
W Barry
A Mayer
P Payne
J Roosevelt Jr
N Woods

Friends of the Cambridge Public Library
http://cambridgema.gov/cpl/friends/
A Chen
L M Erdmann
F Srulowitz
P Baudoin
D Colburn
K Kosko
K Lewis
D Mandel
N Nyhan
M Osler
K Price
F Tenenbaum
S Twarog
J Vollmer

City Council
City Manager
http://cambridgema.gov

The Honorable William Francis Galvin
Secretary of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts
Public Records Division
http://www.sec.state.ma.us/arc/arcrmu/rmuidx.htm
R Murray
A N Cote

Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners
http://mass.gov/libraries
http://mblc.state.ma.us/

Associated Press
http://ap.org

http://lists.webjunction.org/mailman/listinfo/publib