from the Cincinnati Enquirer

BY LORI KURTZMAN | ENQUIRER STAFF WRITER
You enter through the automatic doors, slightly confused. You’re not sure what you want and you haven’t a clue where to find it. So you fiddle with the racks. You pace up and down the aisles. Finally you hear a voice – “Can I help you?” – and you look up to see a smiling face, a name badge and a headset.
Help has arrived.
Sounds a little like Old Navy, but this is not a clothing store. This is the future of the downtown library, which is about to undergo a restructuring that will change the way it addresses customer needs – which have shifted dramatically since the library opened 50 years ago at Eighth and Vine streets.

The Main Library for the 21st Century plan – ML/21 for short – calls for nearly $1 million in physical changes. These include the creation of a first-floor “popular library” that would house high-demand materials, including DVDs, CDs and fiction books, and the installation of informational kiosks throughout the building. Other additions include a teen center to hold programs and collections geared toward teens, a homework help space and a technology center staffed with computer-savvy workers.

“We’re looking at ways to serve our customers better,” said public relations director Amy Banister.

The changes, which are about a year away, came after a “tremendous amount of research,” Banister said. Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County officials surveyed employees and patrons, studied 12 similar libraries and observed more than 23,000 visitors to the main library to see who they were, where they went in the library and what they were doing there.

The results surprised them. They found customers were using the library more as a place – a lounge, a meeting space – than as a place to find answers to their questions, Banister said.

They also found that visitors preferred to find information quickly and on their own – after all, what can’t a person find on Google? – Reference desk queries had dropped 40 percent during the past 15 years.

“It really varied from the way we thought customers were using the library,” Banister said.

On a recent day, library visitors came for a variety of reasons, but few said they had cause to swing by a reference desk.

Jerry Banks, sitting in a chair with a book, said he stopped by the library to “get out of the cold.” Banks said he visits the library daily, mainly to hang out and browse books.

Ramona Jones, on the other hand, was there for more traditional reasons – she was passing the time while her daughter, Noelle, did research for a high school paper. (Jones said her daughter might have consulted a librarian but preferred to do research on her own.)

“We try to come here on a weekly basis,” the Pleasant Ridge woman said, noting that the main library has more resources than some of its branches.

ML/21 streamlines staff – roughly 24 positions will be cut through attrition or reassignment – and puts the customer at the center of what the library does. It’s out with the pinched-face librarian sitting behind a an intimidating oak reference desk and in with roving librarians, who will approach you to help you figure out how much your car is worth or where you can find that book on keeping roaches as pets.

“The goal is to be more proactive,” said Greg Edwards, library services manager for the main library. “We’re going out there and asking them, ‘Do you need help?’ ”

E-mail lkurtzman@enquirer.com.

 

21st century library

Some highlights of the plan to revamp the main branch of the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County: -- Reference service. The new model has roving librarians who will approach library visitors and a central reference desk instead of 11 subject reference desks. A remote reference center would field phone or online questions. Rather than being arranged by divided into subject departments, as it is now, the nonfiction collection would be organized in straight Dewey Decimal System order. -- Popular library A “library within the library.” This first-floor collection would house the library’s most popular items, including DVDs, CDs and fiction books. Designed to be a quick in-and-out location. -- Technology center Most computers will be consolidated into this area, which will be staffed by workers with expertise in software and technology. -- Genealogy and local history department More focused collections and trained staff in the areas of genealogy, river history, Cincinnati history and African-American history.