Improving library services

Jennifer Macaulay, an MLS student at Southern Connecticut, has a wonderful post on her blog, Life as I know It on the topic Improving Library Services: A Review of Techniques.

I'm listing her main points below, but I highly recommend the entire post. Her selection of topics is inspired (and inspiring); her annotations on each topic are concise and insightful.

If you want to make a positive change in your library, tack up Jennifer's post on your door, throw a dart, and start doing whatever you hit (unless your aim is bad and you hit that old Calvin and Hobbes comic that you taped up in 1992-- don't, I repeat, don't do what Calvin is doing...)

Here are the techniques Jennifer highlighted, but really, read the post.

• Use of integrated service points
• Cross training of staff
• Flexible management technique
• Redefine the library’s physical space
• Allow users to participate in decisions about which services to offer
• Focus on new models of professional development for the entire staff
• Adding content to library catalogs (OPACs)
• Develop a comprehensive marketing strategy to advertise library services
• Re-evaluate the current library user and their information needs
• Re-evaluate library signage
• Beware of technology for technology’s sake
  

If Jennifer is at all representative of the future of our profession I think we're in good hands.

Tags: libraries, library management, lis, library science, library education, l20