Month: February 2007

Barriers Part 2

In an earlier post I discussed psychological barriers that can be imposed on library users. What about the plain old fashioned “physical barriers?” Those are the ones that we have to deal with every day and in a really obvious way. So why are they there? Best intentions. Truly, it is the best intentions (at least I want to believe it is) that causes libraries to stick up enter/exit bars and winding paths of stanchions to get to the check-out desk. We say we’re helping keep order, keeping our users from getting confused or losing their ways. Hmmm, how about just cluttering up their paths? You’ll see in this photo that the stationary barriers are still there (not much we can do about those without the use of heavy equipment…though we should–and I say WILL–must believe we WILL). But, you’ll see a lot of freed-up space in the lobby behind them. This is now USABLE space because the imposing (and not-so-pretty) mismatched stanchions were removed. And guess what? People know how to form a line (or lines) on their own. Why do we think we have to direct them to a station? Even on the busiest days since the stanchions were removed, people find their way. They fall–you got it–in line! Now to get rid of those hardcore enter/exit bars…the ones that smack you in the gut because you entered through the exit line (this happens more times than you can count–to users and staff). There are better ways! We’ll never implement them if we don’t challenge ourselves and TRUST our users–and ourselves–to be, well, smart–and human!

Where’s is the Point?


This post has received several visits, questions, and a bit of a stir in the old golf-pencil stash…I’ve reposted it here as the link for comments on the earlier post couldn’t be retrieved…feel free to comment away now…

Where’s The Point?
I’m inclined to say there is no point…at least when it comes to these familiar little things–yes, the golf pencil, the mini-pencil, or the nubby pencil as Helene, a PLCMC collegue, told me she calls them today. Whatever you call them, I think they are a perfect little example of old ideas or practices that aren’t really serving us any more in libraries–at least not effectively. My point in their pointlessness is this: We pay money for these tiny little things that last perhaps for 2 or 3 usages and then wind up in the garbage can. You can’t sharpen them as they get lost or stuck in the pencil sharpener…they have no eraser and wind up being more of an annoyance than anything. As I was thinking about this, I looked at the pen in my own hand. It was a nice padded grip pen that I received free from a promotional products rep…I then I looked at the pencil cup on my desk and it is filled with dozens of unused pens and pencils… I look around the workroom in my department–dozens, perhaps hundreds of unused pencils and pens! And still we are paying for these tiny little bothersome yellow pencils! My curiosity deepened on this small topic, so I made a few calls and found out how much these items cost–for a box of them (114) retail = $14! Wholesale= $8! (a real steal? No.) I can confidently say that the library where I work each day could easily go through a box or more of these a day! I’ll let you do the math. We’re talking thousands of dollars here folks. But how could anything replace our familiar golf pencils? They’re as Library as, say bookends? For starters, how about just bringing out some of those hundreds of pens and pencils floating around in all the drawers and cups and bins in our offices…or, hmmm, remember that pen I mentioned earlier that had the name of a product rep on it? Don’t you just know that they (or another local agency) would likely jump head over heals to have their pens with their logo and info used in a building that serves thousands of people daily. Even better, what if the Library took the thousands of dollars it’s spending on these short-lived items and had inexpensive pens or pencils printed. “Then people would take them…they’d walk out the door!”you say? My response:” Oh, no! That means we’d have pens with our logo and message floating all over the Charlotte region!” Not such a bad thing to happen, I say. This alternative has much more of a point than a $14 box of golf pencils. Get my point?

Barriers, Freedom, Stickers?

Stop Sign Montage
Originally uploaded by JaypeeOnline.

I have recently been working on a presentation about intellectual freedom. Interesting in life when you are focusing on a subject or idea so many “illustrations” of it begin to appear around you–some monumental, some mundane–all mental-note worthy.
Picture me wading through manuals, articles, and online material in preparation to present information on intellectual freedom…when…poof…real-life appears before me. Real life in the form of a series of emails in which I find out that a few public libraries within hollering distance of where I am located are starting to sticker and/or relocate parts of their collections to designate them into levels to support the reading lists of a particular for-profit “incentive-based reading program” (er, let’s be fun and a little coy here and just say that the program starts with an “A” and ends with an “R.”) Cut to me, like a bolt of lightning out of the Library Heavens, running to find my intellectual freedom file of information. Pouring through my notes and print-outs I find the small phrase that cuts to the chase–“psychological barriers.” Think: it is not the intent of the Public Library to support or construct any psychological barriers for any readers. Easy enough to buy into right. And yet, alas, the thought of a collection of blue spine-stickered books (for the 4.5 readers) and yellow spine-stickered books (for the 2.4 readers) has psychological barrier written all over it.
An aside from the my-school-days memory box: Did we not learn anything from the “SRA Program” in the 70’s and 80’s? As a student who endured this during that time, I can say that yes, I learned one big lesson from it: Reading = Taking a test to prove you did the reading! Is that what we wish to support? How about Reading = discovery of self, the world, new information in the method, at the level, in the time that is right for the Individual and not at a $tandardized pace (yes, the “$” is intentional).
So, can a few hundred stickers really be barriers to reading freedom? Can’t they be seen as a support–as short-cut–for users to find what is required by their schools? Answer this question: If a user has 10 minutes to find books on a busy evening will they take the time or find the resource to lead them to that book on “coins of the world” their child really wants or choice from those which are pre-selected and marked or stickered with an “authorized” company’s leveling system? Are we talking about barriers or support here? Perhaps it’s a pretty grey area…but it becomes more clear to me with the stickers come out, a small psyco-barrier goes up.
Let reading freedom ring!