Personalising Library Services in Higher Education

The Boutique Approach

Elizabeth Tilley, Andy Priestner

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN: 9781317081845
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Library & Information Science
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

In an economic climate where cuts are becoming the norm, a boutique library service may seem a contradiction. In some academic libraries the trend is still towards centralisation programmes or offering generic services. However, the student as the customer now has an even greater vested interest in the learning process as their financial commitment increases and they are demanding better services. Personalised library services are tailored with a specific clientele in mind and will provide the enhanced service demanded by today's students. These services need not cost more money; but they do require inventive and customer-facing staff. They celebrate and promote collaborative ventures along with excellent communication and marketing. This book unpacks the boutique model and is full of practical advice, supported by a unique set of case studies reflecting international practice including Australian, American and Russian and UK library services.

CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCING THE BOUTIQUE APPROACH
ANDY PRIESTNER AND ELIZABETH TILLEY

CHALLENGES AND THREATS

Today library and information services operating in the higher education environment are arguably facing the most intimidating range of challenges and threats in their history: the higher (and different) expectations of users, the breakneck pace of technological change, the emergence of social media, and, perhaps most significantly, cuts in government funding following the global economic crisis. Taken together these elements have the potential to dictate a very uncertain future for the academic librarian and the libraries in which they operate.

The majority of today’s academic librarians do seek to innovate, to secure their ongoing value to their user populations. They have embraced social media and mobile technologies, grasped the opportunity to teach in the classroom, and integrated themselves into the research process at their institutions. They are sold on their roles as publishers and facilitators and recognise that it is no longer enough to simply act as collectors and curators. They understand the importance of moving beyond the library walls, of connecting with digital natives whose information skills have proved to be very different to, but not necessarily better than, the previous generation. They are convinced that we must both market ourselves and our services within our institutions, and ensure that we are identified as responsible for the provision of resources such as e-journals and e-books. In short they recognise the need for us to be visible and relevant to our institutions, and that advocacy is an essential component of their day-to-day work.

Now this is all well and good, but there is a sense that, while all of the above is certainly laudable, it does not necessarily constitute a strategic or planned approach to change, or a ‘transformative agenda’, as mapped out by Sue McKnight in Facet’s Envisioning Future Academic Library Services (McKnight 2010). Rather than adhering to a recognised process or model, we librarians are increasingly ‘having a go’ at a bit of everything, sometimes, rather inevitably, with mixed results. We seem to end up trying to do too much and, as a result, do little of it very well. We also do not have time to evaluate our activities, or to check that they are actually bearing fruit. Moreover, there is a danger that, while offering such a multifaceted service, we ironically fail to remember the user in all of this. Yes, in a broad sense, all of this activity is ‘for the user’, but when put under the microscope, specific users and their needs may have got lost along the way. Ask yourself the following questions:

• Do you amend every teaching session you give to suit the needs of different user groups?

• Do you segment your marketing efforts to ensure your message hits home with everyone?

• Do you present many and varied opportunities for users to connect with you on a one-to-one basis?

• Do you know the student lifecycle and present an appropriate point-of-need service at each relevant juncture as a result?

• Or does your service more closely resemble a generic approach, whereby some of the mud you fling against the wall sticks, but most of it slides down?

We all know that ‘one size does not fit all’, but sometimes time, money or occasionally lack of imagination lead us to offer a service suggesting that we have not grasped that fact.

Of course the other huge problem is that more onlookers outside the profession are reaching the conclusion that librarians and libraries have had their day, however scant or flawed the evidence. We are customer focused, our physical space is still important, all information is not available for free on Google, and we do have the IT and design skills to respond to the demands being placed upon us, but all too often the opposite conclusion is reached. Is there anything we can do to turn the tide?

Finally, there is the compelling argument that all we are currently achieving by integrating with today’s multiplatform, multimedia age is adding to ‘the noise’, especially if we are not truly thinking about or targeting our messages and just blogging, facebooking or tweeting in order to climb on the bandwagon.

A New User-centric Model

It was these kinds of questions and concerns that led us to start talking about developing a more user-centric model applicable within academic librarianship that could serve as a foundation for any librarians seeking to maximise their resources and reach and the usage, popularity and understanding of their service. This model would respond to the widespread recognition that in today’s world the individual is ‘king’, has higher expectations of service, expects their voice to be heard and responded to, and is freer than ever to create, access and use information, but would simultaneously play to the skills and outlook of academic librarians and prove their ongoing relevance and value. The elements instinctively led us to draw up a model focusing on personalised and local information delivery to individual users that could be described as highly tailored, unique and reactive. This model could also realistically accept that such an approach is inevitably shaped by how and where the service sits within the context of a wider library system, and the prominence and value of collaborative and centralised elements within that environment. It would, in short, meet the demands of today’s users and embrace the components of the modern information world, actively treating them as opportunities rather than threats.

LESSONS FROM THE HOTEL INDUSTRY

Our direct inspiration for this new approach was the concept of the boutique hotel. Although hoteliers have never been under threat in the way that librarians are now, back in the early 1980s they were beginning to recognise that there could be another, far more lucrative, way of meeting customer needs. When forging their new approach they looked to high-end fashion retail and specifically clothing boutiques that prized uniqueness and individuality above uniformity and consistency. Transposing this model to the hotel industry, new hotels began to emerge, first in London and San Francisco and later throughout the world, that embraced a new way of thinking about customers, services and facilities: boutique hotels. Boutique hotels sought to provide a level of service and experience that simply could not be matched by the homogenous Hilton and Radisson hotel chains, by making specific customer needs their number one priority. Boutique hotels by definition seek to be different to each other, but they can generally be characterised by the offering of a seamlessly intuitive and highly personalised service focusing on every detail of a guest’s stay. Compelling architecture and design also have an important part to play, with much made of the history of the hotel, the luxurious nature of the environment, or a particular theme reflected in the décor and layout.

One of the best-known examples of a boutique hotel is New York’s Library Hotel, which is described in its promotional literature as follows:

Fashioned from a landmark 1900 brick and terracotta structure, this boutique treasure has been beautifully restored into a small luxury New York City hotel of the highest caliber. An oasis of modern elegance ... its attentive staff provide a thought-provoking experience to sophisticated leisure and business travellers with a passion for culture and individual expression. (Library Hotel 2011)

Each of the Library Hotel’s ten floors is dedicated to a different class of the Dewey Decimal Classification system, with each hotel room representing a different subdivision of those classes, meaning you can stay in, for example, the Dramatic Literature room (800.004), which has playbills decorating the walls and a bookcase of relevant tomes. This particular boutique hotel has certainly struck a winning formula and was recently voted the Best Luxury Hotel in the US.

Such has been the success of the boutique hotel concept that, as these establishments have become more prominent and widely recognised as profitable, somewhat inevitably the big hotel chains have tried to get in on the act, unveiling upscaled versions of the approach with hotels billed as ‘boutique’ that nevertheless cater to many guests in the same way, for example the Radisson Blu Edwardian chain.

THE FIRST BOUTIQUE LIBRARIES

Despite the obvious parity with libraries, in respect of putting user needs first, the adoption of boutique by the library sphere took some time; indeed, it has never been fully embraced. It was not until 1999 that the first ‘boutique library’ opened its doors. This library was the brainchild of Singapore’s National Library Board (NLB), who were seeking to reinvigorate their public library services by attempting to make them more relevant and appealing. Having elected to focus upon the specific needs of a specific group of customers following a national reading survey, the result was ‘library@orchard’ in the city centre, aimed squarely at the young adult market. Initial concerns about catering to just one user group dissipated rapidly due to high usage by, and glowing feedback from, the target customers. ‘Library@orchard’ was used as a testbed for new products and services, and due to its success the NLB decided to open a second boutique library in 2002, this time with a subject focus on the performing arts: ‘library@esplanade’. Following a serious promotional campaign, ‘library@ esplanade’ saw some 14,000 visitors through its doors on the first day alone! Although ‘library@orchard’ is currently closed (as the building lease came to an end) there are plans to reopen it, while ‘library@esplanade’ continues to thrive. As an aside, it seems likely that the NLB partly chose to go with the boutique moniker because the city is synonymous with boutique shopping, with the gleaming Takashimaya mall on the famous Orchard Road being the destination of choice for high-end shoppers.

The world’s third boutique library opened in Christchurch, New Zealand in August 2005: the Parklands Boutique Library, which was put together by a team of people who ‘worked on every aspect of the library building and service’ and sought a space that was ‘flexible, adaptive, stimulating and dynamic’ (Thompson 2006). This is, and was, a library designed with its different user communities in mind, exemplified by its innovative time zone concept, which is intended to break down traditional library barriers and personalise the times of use. Named zones include: ‘Play’ (time for preschoolers to be able to make noise); ‘Revive’ (time for adults to relax and enjoy the quiet environment); ‘Breakout’ (time for homework help and study support); ‘Relax’ (time for everyone at the weekends); and ‘Connect’ (time for specific community groups). Rather than just arbitrarily naming zones, the visionary individuals behind the Parklands project were keen to connect on a personal, even emotional, level with their customers, with a view to offering them an experience as much as a service:

Moving to the north end of the building you find yourself in yet another zone, the ‘Easy Zone/Te Whanui’ (community). Being in this part of the library feels like you are sitting in a magazine spread. With a wonderful outlook onto the sculpture garden it is full of light and warmth … with warm winds wafting through the enormous wall of opening doors, you can transport yourself. (Thompson 2006)

One other notable boutique element was an intention to have staff roving, mingling and engaging with customers at all times.

BOUTIQUE AND THE ACADEMIC SECTOR

It is both interesting and surprising that these three highly successful libraries appear on the face of it to be the only libraries to have ever been conferred with the term boutique. Despite one or two scant mentions in library and information literature post 2005, most notably in Dewe’s Planning Public Library Buildings, in which boutique libraries are cited as a viable alternative to monolithic central libraries and specialised facilities that ‘should be housed close to those who would make most us of them’ (Dewe 2006: 68), it seems the boutique name just did not catch on. Whether this was because people were uncomfortable with the word or with the approach in general is unclear.

It is perhaps more of a mystery that the terminology did not break through into the academic sector, especially given that it boasts a larger number of specialist subject libraries than the public sector, with unique collections and users with more specific needs. The relevance of ‘the boutique approach’ to the academic sector was so readily apparent to the authors of this book that their first piece on the subject (Priestner and Tilley 2010) was pitched as a defence of subject librarians, especially as they have become an increasingly threatened breed in recent years (with severe restructuring at Bangor University, swingeing staff cuts at London Business School, and many job losses at London Metropolitan University, to name just three examples). The article also highlights how there have been disappointing trends, following centralisation, towards standardising services in order to make specialist subject libraries generically familiar and appropriate to everyone, rather than celebrating those existing services that embraced a unique, tailored and highly customer-focused approach that was greatly valued by their users. Exploration of such scenarios led to our recognition that the boutique approach could be applied across higher education as it is more about taking a view on service strategy than about the existence of specific collections. The distillation of what we mean by boutique is detailed in Figure 1.1.

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Boutique is......

• Putting the user first.

• Focusing on what really matters to users and delivering it.

• Recognising the importance and value of individuality and uniqueness over uniformity and consistency.

• Customising resources, services and space to suit individual needs.

• Having the flexibility to keep up with the pace of change in the information world and the agility to implement and promote the new services users require in a timely fashion as a result.

• Recognising user groups as individuals not as homogenous groups that think and feel the same way.

• Setting higher user expectations and meeting them.

• Not necessarily expensive, it can aid librarians to pare down to the bare essentials.

• Investing in serious time with users where necessary in order to demonstrate our function/value.

• In tune with social media and Web 2.0, it is about conversations and the voice of the individual.

• Presenting specific solutions and applications rather than generic databases and tools.

• Adopting all avenues of, and platforms for, communication in order to connect with all types of users.

• Not just collection-based, not just subject-based, not just cohort-based, but user-based.

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Figure 1.1 A distillation of the boutique approach

MODELS OF LIBRARY SERVICES

The question that many librarians might ask is, why develop a model at all? Do we really need it? Social science methodology follows a typical path by firstly, observing and subsequently identifying, trends and themes in the world around us, and secondly, formulating hypotheses, theories or indeed models against which to further measure other scenarios to establish whether a model is simple enough to be applicable. A model describes observed current practice and, by definition, it is a simplified representation of reality. It could be argued that, by the time models are developed and services benchmarked against it, they merely represent a paradigm shift that has already gone by, and therefore have limited application. However, if the model can be dynamic and practical, as well as descriptive, it provides a convenient mechanism for planning service development.

We feel that the boutique model (Figure 1.2) is a simplistic but clear reproduction of the structure in many academic libraries. Its three component parts are not immovable; they would evolve and change over time and between services. Ultimately, designing a model provides a pragmatic solution for creating a visual representation of the key contributors to a successful boutique library. The underl...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of Figures and Tables
• Preface and Acknowledgements
• List of Contributors
• 1 Introducing the Boutique Approach
• 2 Face-to-Face Value: Personalised Communication Strategies
• 3 Library Space and Designing for a Boutique Library Service in the USA
• Section 1
• Section 2
• Index