It’s Alive! – also, interesting Reference Questions

Hello to the millions and mil….nevermind.

So clearly I have neglected to update this blog in well, some time. However, in my absence I have only been busy with a “veritable plethora” (- Q, TNG, Encounter at Farpoint)  of library related things. The quick breakdown:

• I am going to be speaking at NJLA with librarian Kate Vasilik of the Piscataway Public Library on “Do’s and Don’t of Programming for 20/30 Year Olds”.  We will be speaking on Wednesday, June 5th in the 10:10 – 11:00am slot. It should be sweet!
• I will also be taking over as President of the NJLA Reference Section in June as well. Big thanks to current President Nick Van Dorn for putting up for President!
• Launched a Staff Picks blog at my library and have contributions from many different staff members – so far its going very well! Thanks to all the other librarians who have contributed 🙂 Here’s the link: http://hobokenlibrary.wordpress.com/
• The seemingly ever present march of contract negotiations has continued with me as lead negotiator – we MIGHT be coming to a resolution soon, for better or worse
• researched Makerspace ideas for my library and implementation possibilities
• about to launch a Pinterest for my library along with two other staff members, who will be largely running the Pinterest after this
• and yunno, other things

So I thought today that I will simply start things out with some interesting reference questions that I have received. As you probably know, Reference and the questions you receive are a pretty different place from 20 or even 10 years ago. Now, my particular reference department is located on the 2nd floor and is separate from the general collections area. As such, this probably limits what questions I receive and greatly limits reader’s advisory that I get. In fact, I receive basically no fiction related reader’s advisory. The ‘reader’s advisory’ questions are ones that non-fiction related: students doing research, questions on ‘where can I find ____ subject books’, etc. The majority of the questions I get relate to use of the library’s computers and copier, which are located next to the reference desk: how to I attach a file to my email? how do I print? how do I make a double-sided copy? how do I use the scanner? etc. So basically, these are most of the categories of questions I routinely receive:

1. Tech assistance questions
2. students doing research
3. local history/genealogy
4. questions on how to use the eBook download service
5. questions loan periods/renewing books
6. small number of random subject questions
7. **crazy person questions

So that last category probably doesn’t seem to fit with the rest, and indeed, they don’t. However, most public librarians would probably relate to the occasional (or regular) odd or bizarre question. Here are just a few ones that I found particularly memorable:

1. Had more than one person in the past 2 weeks who, in the course of asking their question, related to me that they were worried that the government was spying on them. This was why they justified either moving from one public computer to another, or wanted to use a print resource rather than an online one.  The one patron wanted contact information for various government officials around the world, but insisted that he could not use a computer to find this information because of the spying government. As such, the best thing that our library had in house was the The Stateman’s Yearbook 2013. That same patron later came to the library with a homemade baseball hat that read as follows, vertically from top to bottom: Hell   /   (American flag with a big X through it)     /   Hell    /    Obama
2. Perhaps my favorite odd question of all time came from a patron I now refer to as the Time Traveling Adventurer. This patron came to the desk and asked for books that might help them…construct a time machine. This patron is a regular and while odd, I did not think this was serious so I almost began to chuckle. However, I quickly realized he was serious.In fact, the time machine itself was not the goal for this person, rather it was his plan for using the time machine. This plan was remarkable similar to the plot of Back to the Future II, in which Biff bets on sports games he learns the outcomes of while visiting the future. My answer: I gave him A Brief History of Time and a collection of Einstein writings.
3. While this is the template example of a question that should be given discretion and professionalism, which I did, I still think its worth mentioning: I once received a question on where to find books on Penises – no other details than that. Needless to say, conducting a traditional reference interview posed certain difficulties.
4. I once helped a patron to write letters to their government representatives. I did not look at the letters themselves, just rather helped them on using Microsoft Word, finding contact information online, etc. After several months of this off an on, the patron asked me to review one letter he was sending as it was going to President Obama and he wanted it to be good. As it turns out, this was around the time when the stimulus package was being discussed and passed through Congress. In his letter the patron claimed he knew how to create 500,000 new jobs in every state and that all he would need was $250-$500 billion to get this off the ground.  That’s all.
5. I once had a patron ask me to help show them how to download pornography from the Internet onto their flash drive.

 

Well, those are the ones I can think of right now. I’m sure I’ll have more later and post them. But those alone should give you some insight into the world of a urban public library 🙂

Public Service Fatigue

Today’s post might be a subject that contributed to the naming of this blog, at least partially haha.

Today was another day at work which finished with a feeling of that might be described as public service fatigue. This is a subject that has been covered somewhat in our field, though I don’t know if I’ve really come across a full solutions. First, let me explain what I mean by public service fatigue. Here I am specifically referring to working a public library service desk, specifically a reference/technology desk in an urban library setting. I do have a good amount of the positive interactions that you would imagine in library school: resume assistance, student research, genealogy help and LOTS of technical assistance. I enjoy these interactions, however I’ve felt recently like my enthusiasm for even these types of questions has been problematic of late. I believe this is likely due to a few factors specific to my work environment, including:

• I do ALL my work from the public service desk, which includes organizing all adult programming, arranging/creating all computer/career workshop classes (I teach them later), operating all social media, strategic planning, linking/processing, loan processing, staff management, etc.
• Juggling many tasks at once from the public service desk

Worker fatigue, cheesy stock photo style!

However, I believe the biggest challenge I face to my enthusiasm is my interactions with a variety of patrons that cause problems with other patrons or staff. These problems come in so many forms and are a such a constant, everyday presence of my work environment that not only do they often absorb significant amounts of my time, but I believe also saps my enthusiasm for all interactions with the public. I’m sure many of you know this problem well, though this is NOT something that is a subject that you are really prepared for in library school. I believe this to be a glaring omission of librarian higher education (among many).

To give you a better image of the situation, here are just SOME of the interactions or situations that are part of my daily work environment:

• Stopping patrons from knowingly breaking various library rules put in place to make the environment a better place for all: playing music/videos very loudly, talking on cell phones, trying to bypass public computer timing software, crowding people around a single computer, etc. Most of these infractions revolve around using the public computers
• Patrons watching pornography on public computers (there are no screen guards and children frequent the area, so we have banned pornography at the library) – this has happened several dozen times in the past several months only. I’ve had to re-write library rules and sanctions to try and deal with this problem, which has resulted in several patrons being banned permanently and others for long periods of time from computer access
• Unfortunately, there have also been patrons who have taken watching pornography on public computers to ‘the next level’ – I won’t spell it out. This has happened more than once
• drunken or intoxicated patrons who may or may not be belligerent, aggressive, loud, potentially dangerous or otherwise very disturbing to patrons/staff
• mentally unstable patrons – many times we’ve had patrons who are mentally unstable or incoherent and present significant problems when thinking about their rights, but then also the rights and safety of other patrons and staff
• Potentially dangerous patrons – we’ve had a number of patrons who have directly threatened staff verbally or physically, staff who have been stalked and harassed outside of work, staff who have been sexually harassed while at work, and many more situations (bomb threats, etc).
• Generally belligerent patrons who are disruptive and insulting to staff

I’m sorry to paint a detailed picture like that, but these are all things that are a significant portion of my work environment and take up significant amounts of my professional time either through have to deal with each situation as it arises, having to work with security on patron sanctions or working with administration on drafting new rules to improve the library environment. Again, this is not a subject that I feel has been broached enough in library schools and professional research. I find that much of the scholarly material in our field (but not all of course) have some of the following traits:

• research is conducted in and meant for academic library settings
• research focuses on ‘next trend’ subjects that show only positive potentials and are often not realistic for many tight budgeted, understaffed public libraries

With that said, there IS significant research on staff well-being and creating a positive work environment in library management and business/general management publications. I plan on perhaps doing an analysis and maybe putting a paper together combining this research with perhaps an individual case study.

Anyway, the point: it bothers me that I’m now not doing my best with general patrons after having been drained with the issues of various problem patrons. I also really got into the field largely because of its role in public service, community assistance and community ties. I work hard to produce programs, collaborate with community organizations and create education opportunities for various people within the community. I was the first to stand up and defend the rights of all to use the library and encouraged other staff to do their best to absorb the trials of problem patrons and instead try to realize the conditions of their life and environment and use the library to create opportunities for them.

While I still feel like I try to do this, my patience and sympathy for problem patrons has lost of lot of ground recently, and that has bothered me. I’ve spent more time recently coming up with new rules and sanctions to prevent bad/disruptive/dangerous behavior than I have on creating programs or services that provide opportunity. I think that part of the problem here is that I have tried to reach out with these services that have seldom been used by the people who could use them the most. Our location is near two shelters and we receive many people from both locations every day. Over the last few years, I spent time identifying needs the library may be able to help with with these populations (computer training, career workshops, etc). I put together monthly computer classes and career workshops that I teach and collaborated with the shelters’ administrations and even gave presentations at the shelters to encourage use of our services. Rarely has anyone actually taken up these opportunities. I knew that this was a long shot of course, its sometimes the hardest thing to reach out for help when in need. However, the general lack of use of these services by problem patrons has worked against my enthusiasm here.

So how are libraries suppose to work with needy patrons who very often can come with an assortment of different challenges that effect staff and other patrons, including mental illness, drug abuse, aggressive behaviors or worse. I recently re-read an article I came across in library school that laid out the picture pretty well by a librarian at the time from the Salt Lake City Library: What They Didn’t Teach Us in Library School by Chip Ward. Here is a link to that fascinating case study of the librarian’s challenges working in an urban setting:

http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/174799/ward_how_the_public_library_became_heartbreak_hotel

So let’s break down possible responses for libraries to these kinds of situations:

1. You can crack down, create new rules and stiff enforcement. This may cut down on incidents, but there’s the problem of denying your service to those who might need them the most. Further, there are questions of whether the library should even restrict access in any way to patrons in most situations
2. You can engage the problem and try to forge solutions. This is often a huge challenge and one that various social service groups in your area are already tackling and are likely overwhelmed and underfunded.
3. A combination of both of the aforementioned
4. Ignore the problems

I believe our library has actually engaged in some of all of the above. Initially I did some community analysis, gatekeeper interviews and created programs and services in collaboration with community groups to try and better meet the needs of this needy group.

Solutions I’ve tried:

1) creating weekly computer basics/intermediate classes

2) monthly career workshops including writing resumes, cover letters, online job searching, etc.

3) One on one sessions with individual patrons

Other things I could try:

• aggressive efforts to really share services and partner with community service organizations
• have social workers visit the library on a regular basis to provide counseling
• provide more programs on basic needs topics (jobs, health care, personal finance, education, etc.) and aggressively target this group

Results of efforts:

1. Low usage of these services by the target group
2. One-on-one sessions were the most effective, but hugely time consuming on staff and classes were adopted instead
3. Disruptive behaviors continued and even intensified (not suggesting this is a causal result, just happened)

Next Step: Sanctions and Rules

• After perhaps two years disruptive, abusive and even dangerous behaviors were becoming out of control so I worked to help draft new rules and sanctions that I pulled from sampling other library policies in NJ and by evaluating our goals.
• New rules were created as well as clear sanctions for rule violations to create clear punishment for rule violations, to protect staff from dangerous patrons and to protect staff in their decision making in these types of situations from potentially negative review from administration.

Results:

• intense level of problem patron behaviors dropped slightly after several patrons were banned or had their privileges limited.
• Rule enforcement has taken up more staff time
• likely trust levels have fallen between needy and/or problem patrons and staff

Finally, in many individual cases staff will tend to ignore smaller rule infractions when possible as they have simply deemed that trying to enforce the rules are not worth it. This decision has been reached as a result of experience with patrons not stopping the behaviors, administration coming down on them for decisions made and the resulting combined stress.

So…what do to?? I’m sure the research I will look into will make many organizational/staff environment recommendations. Just browsing some of the literature (and from my knowledge of management practices), here’s a couple of organizational ‘solutions’ that could be adopted:

1. design on/off desk time for all staff and enforce
2. rotate staff in different departments
3. create reasonable goals and objectives for staff and with reasonable workloads
4. desk coverage to include more than one staff at all times so all staff have backup
5. create well structured and trained staff procedures
6. try to engage all staff in more decision making and team forged solutions on these issues
7. create fun activities and rewards for staff instead of just all work all the time
8. staff physical health options  – staff yoga, exercise, etc.

I”m sure there are many others. However, I feel as if those are general workplace style solutions that do not address this specific public librarian fatigue issue. Note: this specific situation may have an added component of a friction between staff and administration. Staff believes that administration does not have the staff’s safety/well being as a top concern and feels like they have not been backed up when making decisions in these tense and difficult situations.

In the end, is the best we can do a combinational approach as I mentioned previously? Try to work with community groups and create services/programs to help this group while at the same time enforcing rules to maintain stable work environment? Well, this flawed approach may be the best possible when working with problem patrons and needy patrons. However, what about the librarians? How can we better deal with this fatigue of which I speak? I’m not sure a solution of a choice of will to simply put on a positive perspective is a realistic solution. I’d like to come up with some a combination of practical organizational, personal, administrative and professional options to create the best environment AND personal/professional perspective to work in such an environment. This is the challenge that I will need to begin researching and working with. How about you, readers? What are your experiences? What are your suggestions? How do YOU feel in your currently work environment? Do you deal with any of these situations? If you are actually still reading this 🙂 then let me know what you think!

Final thoughts: Solutions right now:

• better manage my workload and scale down
• create off-desk time for all staff to have time off-desk to work
• Designate a technical services desk and reference desk – have designated staff for each desk and separate duties to make better workflow
• move reference desk away from computer area (where most infractions occur) – not physically possible at our library, and really not a good solution most likely
• work hard to create better comradery within the department – create fun events at work away from the desk, rewards/recognition for employees who have done well, etc. Though, this might be hard not actually running the department…
• better connect with local social services organizations and create fresh solutions/partnerships
• maintain level of sanctions/rules
• * management issues/trust: well, I’m the union representative currently negotiating contracts, so working on it 🙂

Whew! That was a waaay too long post. Sorry. If you are still reading, THANK YOU and GREAT JOB! Let me know your thoughts!

PS – here is a funny photo:

“Non-professional” solution to librarian fatigue??