Week 4: Secret Shopper
I completed this secret shopper assignment over the weekend during a day trip to my favorite Lake Michigan beach town. I had never been to this library before, so it was a fun little pit-stop!
The interaction started very genuinely while I was wandering around the library admiring it. An employee who was shelving asked if I needed help finding and anything and I explained that I was from out out of town so I wasn't looking to check anything out, but that I have ben in a reading slump and have been having trouble finding a good book to read.
At this point the RA interview began and the employee asked me if I was looking for fiction or non-fiction (since I was in the non-fiction section when this happened) and what I liked about the most recent books I had finished. After discussing my reading habits with this employee they offered to have another employee help us and it became an RA interaction between all three of us. This flow of conversation between employees and patron reminded me of Spratford's article and the importance of “[encouraging employees] to walk over to other service desks throughout the library and start talking about the last good movie they watched or book they read” (pg. 8). They way these employees spoke about the books with each other and me made me think that they are comfortable talking about these things and I can imagine talking about the books and movies they are watching is a normal part of their days. I am always telling my coworkers what I'm reading and watching, but that is a thing that is very easy for me to talk about with just about anyone.
During the interaction the librarians used a Google Search, Novelist, and Goodreads; both Goodreads and Novelist are recommended resources for finding books from the Johnson County Public Library (n.d.). The combination of the librarians' own knowledge and the search engines did in fact give me some very good results- two of their recommendations are currently on my TBR. Overall, I think this interaction was incredibly helpful and that the library staff were having an "on" day for RA recommendations. This exchange happened during a sleepy weekend and I could tell that they seemed thinly staffed (my own library does this as well), but everyone involved was lively and helpful, but calm throughout. I would absolutely ask them for more recommendations and maybe I will when I go back for vacation this summer!
References
Johnson County Public Library. (n.d.) What should I read next? https://www.pageafterpage.org/what-should-i-read-next
Spratford, B. (2016). Talk Among Yourselves: Jump Starting Your Readers’ Advisory. ILA Reporter, 34(2), 8–10.
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Haley, Your experience sounds fun and helpful! It's great that you had the opportunity to visit a library so removed from where you live. I know practically every library staff member in my own county, and it was pure luck that I got sent somewhere new for a roundtable right when I needed to do this assignment.
ReplyDeleteI love that the staff worked together to find you a recommendation. They seem like a great team, with enthusiasm about their jobs. I bet most of their days are "on" days.
Note to readers of this post: Haley and I work for the same library system. Congrats on a successful RA experience! I think our library system does a decent job of encouraging staff to talk about books and movies--we make "book talk" videos for Facebook, many staff note what they are reading in their email signature, and we get a monthly bookish interview with a staff member published to our staff e-newsletter. Do you know if the library you visited is part of a larger system or cooperative?
ReplyDeleteHi Jenni! This library is a stand alone library and has no other branches. If there are other support networks they don't appear very obvious from the patron standpoint-at least not as a day visitor in the off season!
DeleteHi Callie! In my library system we alternate weekends and I find that both days are slower before 3pm than weekdays. Because of this, if I am often more likely to really take my time with patron interactions because I become a little "people starved" during my shift! I think these librarians may have been feeling the same way!
ReplyDeleteWow, Haley! Your experience sounds great. It definitely sounds like they often talk amongst themselves about books they've read. I like to visit libraries when I'm on vacation. One of the favorite ones I've visited is the little library on Mackinac Island in Michigan, it was adorable!
ReplyDeleteHi Haley! It sounds like you had a great interaction, with multiple contributing librarians. That's always helpful, everyone reads something different, and having more people involved in the interview can allow more ideas to get tossed around. I always appreciate that, and my staff in Circulation likes to assist and put their two cents in whenever they can for a patron.
ReplyDeleteGreat summary and discussion!
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