EDITOR'S NOTES
Seeing the Unseen Opportunities for Improving Services
by Dick Kaser
In her thoughtful essay on the subject of data bias, Suzanne LaPierre (Fairfax County Public Library) reminds us that sometimes, we simply don’t see underserved patrons. We may only hear the voices of current users or well-spoken individuals, but that approach can leave out quite a few patrons. She shows you how to spot data bias so that you might overcome it in your survey designs and resultant service offerings and encourages you to not instinctively look away from those you don’t recognize.
Amanda Jones (Live Oak Middle Library) could have been cowed by, as she puts it, her Southern “polite society” upbringing. But once she got the hang of social media, Jones learned using it wasn’t bragging at all—it was about advocating. As a result, she measurably increased the level of community support for the library. Jones shares her tips and tricks for transforming your posts from drab to fab and upgrading your image from book maven to learning partner.
John DeLooper (City University of New York–Lehman College) might have missed an opportunity to provide a desired service if he had not observed some behavior in the stacks and set about helping students do what they were already doing, except better. Not wishing to stand in line at the flatbed scanners, the students were using their cellphones to photograph texts or images that they needed for their studies. As it turns out, there’s an app for that—in fact, there are several. DeLooper took it upon himself to check out the handheld scanning options and run them down for you.
Brian Holda and Emily Hayes, librarians at Davenport University, might not have achieved their digital literacy instruction mandate had they not looked outside the box. Tasked with teaching digital literacy skills to a large cohort of students, they knew they didn’t have the staff to pull it off. So, they outsourced the work by adopting and adapting pre-fab digital literacy modules, then rolled them out and got a threefold uptick in views. The students received decent measurable digital skill scores as a result.
Seeing may not always lead to believing, but if you’re looking for ways to improve services, follow these prime examples, and take a look around for opportunities of your own
Dick Kaser, Executive Editor
kaser@infotoday.com
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