Whoops! Posted to the wrong blog. Let's try again on the other one, Sunnyvale Library Today.

Happy New Year! I hope everyone had a great holiday season - I did. I’m just back from a wonderful Central American adventure with family and friends, a real bonding experience which I highly recommend. During my vacation I found that I had not once worried about how things were going at home. News flash to Deb – You are not Type A! But more to the point, I know that the Sunnyvale Library has dedicated, talented staff here at all times.

The bloom of the vacation has worn off quickly though. Prepared for the day, knowing that I had a challenging meeting scheduled early on, things didn’t start off as well as I had hoped. I spilled café mocha on my clothes just minutes before my meeting with a library patron whom I believed had a problem to discuss with me. This was an unfortunate beginning for what I suspected would be a talk about double digit library fines!

Fines are sometimes an emotional issue for the public, as well as for library staff members. From the staff perspective, many of us intensely dislike having to charge fines. After all, we are in the business of freely providing information and freely loaning materials. I, for one, have found myself trying to give information to people who have not even asked me for it. Fines and fees are one approach to the business side of libraries which requires that materials be returned on time in order for the system to work, and they help recover the cost of replacing materials that are not returned. In between fines/fees and patrons/staff are special circumstances, human error and miscommunications. Dealing with library fines is NOT the fun part of being a librarian. Meeting and talking with library users IS a fun part, even under circumstances that are not the very best.

We renewed our commitment to excellent customer service at a staff meeting at the beginning of the year. Sunnyvale Library management staff also agreed to “go the extra mile” to address customer service issues whenever we could do so. While we recognize that we must adhere to policies and procedures, we also agreed that we would strive to better understand the patrons’ perspective and look for opportunities to serve them. This was my opportunity. The library user had asked for a meeting with me but had not specified the reason. I scouted around for a likely problem that this meeting could solve. Identifying one possibility, staff and I discussed a potential approach to the topic, just in case we were right about the purpose of the meeting. So, having completed the research and changed my clothes, I was ready to meet our library user. Imagine my delight as we met and the patron said, “I am having a problem with my beloved library.” The day just got infinitely better...