Customers and Libraries?

by David Lee King on May 17, 2007

The Break Up
Uploaded by geertdesager

Here’s a fun video I discovered this morning, and had a few thoughts about it. The video’s about advertisers and consumers “getting a divorce.” The best part, to me, is when the “advertiser” says “I know everything about you – you’re 24-31…” (and he’s talking to an actual person – pretty funny).

Do libraries do this? Not sure… what do you think?

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http://libraryrevolution.com/ Emily

I saw this clip this morning, too… and I do think that libraries do the same thing. We assume we know all bout our customers without really engaging them in a productive two-way conversation with them and really listening to what they have to say. Library services are all too often designed to meet perceived needs that may or may not match the actual needs of our customers. That’s one of the reasons why I am pretty put off by libraries when I approach them from the library patron standpoint.
http://libraryrevolution.com Emily

I saw this clip this morning, too… and I do think that libraries do the same thing. We assume we know all bout our customers without really engaging them in a productive two-way conversation with them and really listening to what they have to say. Library services are all too often designed to meet perceived needs that may or may not match the actual needs of our customers. That’s one of the reasons why I am pretty put off by libraries when I approach them from the library patron standpoint.
Cindi Hickey

I agree with Emily above. I would go even further and say we focus on “needs” in libraries. Sure libraries need to meet needs but we should also be interested in our customers interests, passions, hobbies, etc. How do they want to meet those needs (downloading from a website or sitting in a cozy corner of the library). We have to talk to our customers and observe what they are doing in order to find out who they are. This needs to be a systematic discovery process rather than based on perceptions alone.
Cindi Hickey

I agree with Emily above. I would go even further and say we focus on “needs” in libraries. Sure libraries need to meet needs but we should also be interested in our customers interests, passions, hobbies, etc. How do they want to meet those needs (downloading from a website or sitting in a cozy corner of the library). We have to talk to our customers and observe what they are doing in order to find out who they are. This needs to be a systematic discovery process rather than based on perceptions alone.