Bringing Services Along for the Ride
As someone who answers people’s problems I’ve found that they are often unaware of the services that the library has to offer. The reasons for this are numerous and be everything from poor site design to a lack of marketing. I’ve been seeing a pattern lately of where people are coming to a halt and that is usually related to the OPAC. The reason for this is that the OPAC is practically it’s own entity. For example if you go to the MSU Homepage you’ll see that the quick links point straight to the OPAC. I’m finding more and more people are accessing the OPAC without every visiting the library website. With the lack of information about related services some people can be left in the dust. While it can be argued that they can follow a link to the library and then dig through it for information, the fact remains that the OPAC could be a place for ADVERTISING services. People are at our OPAC usually to do research and so it would be wise to promote research related services there. I’ve wrote a more detailed write-up, along with a mock-up at my blog.
I think Stephen Manes says it best:
My biggest complaint is that some libraries’ Web sites don’t detail the amazing range of services they offer online until you cough up a card number. Memo to those insular institutions: Put the info in the shop windows out front and I bet you’ll see a lot more card-carrying customers walking through the electronic doors.
The reason I bring this up here is that this could easily happen when dealing with portal projects and the like. Much of the discussion is about how to bring the search and information to the user, but how do you bring the rest of the library along with it? Should a page in a portal give links to related services? How do you push information and presence? An alternate question would be how do you pull people back to the library from these external sources. If anyone has examples of a service they created that brings takes advantage of the context to promote services, please share.
Technorati Tags: customer service, library, opac, marketing, services
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