We are more than books

I went out to lunch with my brother the other day and when we were walking over to the public library he said how is surprised there are still libraries given the use of Google. I explained to him how when you ask a librarian a question they can find the right answer with quality resources without having to sift through a ton of pages. He rebutted how he loves to go through all the results. The conversation continued with me explaining that not everyone knows how to search properly and that, when I worked at the public library, I offered courses on how to properly use Google and select the best web pages. Once we got into the educational aspect of what a librarian does, it made more sense to him and the conversation finished with him saying, “I never thought of it that way”. So, how do we get people to think of libraries and librarians as being more than just about books?

There have been many articles, written and published, about the death of the library, the future of the library, and so on. I do not want to be flogging a topic here but I think that we are more than just about books and that we need to come up with strategies that promote our essential quest as librarians. I recently asked my colleagues what they believe and why they are librarians or why they work in a library. I got responses that ranged from we are knowledge gatekeepers to the heartfelt childhood encounter with a library and how the path to working in a library continued from there and to being there to help students. The slogan I came up with from that is, “your success is our passion”. Passion; I love that word. Almost every librarian I have ever met has a certain passion about our profession. We are there to help, to teach, to expand the minds of others. In a world were illiteracy still exists, reading and computer illiteracy alike, we often are there to help combat it and offer a whole other world of opportunities. This could be in public libraries where people use the resources for job searching or to attend the highly sought after computer courses. It could be showing people how to access online and on site resources. It could be sitting with a stressed out student who has an assignment due in a week and has no idea how they are going to find the articles necessary to accomplish the daunting task of finishing the assignment (and get an excellent mark while they are at it). These encounters are why libraries are still around.

So what we need to do is create marketing strategies that tell people, HEY COME LEARN FROM INFORMATION EXPERTS TO BECOME INFORMATION EXPERTS! As a medical librarian I recently created a poster saying “You are medical experts. Librarians are information retrieval experts. We work together so your patients have a better quality of life.” (translated from: “Vous êtes des experts en médecine. Nous sommes des experts en recherche documentaire. Nous travaillons ensemble pour que vos patients aient une meilleure qualité de vie. ”). Everyone thinks they are experts in some domain but what most do not realize is that librarians are essentially information experts; be it experts in cataloguing and classification, information retrieval, records management, archival management, and so much more. The difference between some professions is that we do not guard are our secret formulas but rather most of us live to teach it. Knowledge sharing is almost our secret mantra.

However, we live in a world where many people prefer to learn on their own until it is necessary to consult with others. Frankly, there is just too much information out there that it is darn near impossible to keep up with it and know where or how to find it. It becomes another battle altogether to break people of their habits and go consult a friendly, smiling librarian who enjoys the opportunity to help someone with their questions. I have thought of things like a promotional campaign where each time a person asks me a reference question, their name is entered into a draw. Anything to get the user in personal contact with me. The best customer service has a personal touch. When I worked at blockbuster, it wasn’t enough to just point someone to where they needed to go (unless we were crazy busy). We would go over to the shelf with them and even put the movie in their hand. Once they have the item in hand, they are more likely to procure it. In the case of librarians, it could be our business card, a pamphlet, or sitting down with them one on one. Any connection that shows that we care and that we are there to help.

There is no doubt our profession is changing. I know we can adapt, as always, to the new challenges ahead. We will change document management systems to improve information flow and make things easier for our patrons and clients. We will change our strategies to get more people on board. We will learn new databases and resources in order to teach them to others. Librarians are continuous learners. We will learn new marketing strategies in order to increase our reference statistics. The end goal is to keep the user satiated and eager to come back for more.