I sometimes get criticism on this blog for insisting that many librarians out there lack the kinds of basic technology skills that many of us take for granted. While these librarians are obviously in the vast minority, I must continue to contend that they are still out there. And sometimes I have a hard time knowing how to deal with them.
Me: …I have a handout with step-by-step instructions for doing what you want. Let me just email it to you. Do I have your address?
Them: No, I really don’t do email.
Me: (Stopping, confused.) You don’t use email?
Them: No, I don’t want to get sucked in. Can you just put the handout in the mail bag for me?
Me: (Totally thrown for a loop) Oh… Well… Um… I don’t know…. You don’t want to get sucked in??
Them: Yes, everyone seems to get so obsessed by their email, and I want to keep things simple for myself. You know, so it doesn’t get overwhelming.
Me: I guess so… but you don’t use email at all?? How do you communicate?
Them: (laughing) You know, the old fashioned way. I call. Or use the mail. Email is such a bother. So can you just mail the handout over to me? Or fax it?
Me: (with new resolve) No, I don’t think so. I can email it because I have the file right here, though. Can I send it to a library email account or something?
Them: I suppose so, but I don’t know how to get into that. I guess I could get someone else to get it for me…
Me: Well, if you find someone, maybe have them call me? I don’t want to send it if I don’t know that you will get it.
Them: Why not just put it in the bag??
Me: Because we email things here. I really think you should think about setting up an email account.
Them: I don’t want to, though. I don’t even know how to.
Me: Don’t you have to help patrons with that?
Them: No, I pass those questions off to someone else. I don’t really want to know anything about computers.
Me: (stubborn) I guess you’re out of luck, then. Why don’t you have someone with an email account call me. Or pick up the handout at the next meeting.
Maybe this wasn’t the best way for me to have handled things, but I was rather taken aback, and sometimes when that happens, you don’t really think, you just react. And the part that really got to me was the whole attitude of “someone else will do it.” I was pretty irritated by that. But in retrospect, I feel like this wasn’t necessarily the best reaction. What do you think?
Was I wrong to not just send the handout via mail? It would have cut this conversation down to size, and the person on the phone would have had her information the next day. Was I just being stubborn? Was this bad customer service on my part? Should I have just let it go?
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September 5th, 2007 at 1:06 pm
Wow. A working professional who doesn’t use email at all? Didn’t think that was possible. I probably would have just gone ahead and mailed it, but more out of shock than anything else.
The more I think about this, though, the more it bothers me that this person won’t even learn about email in order to help their patrons. Even though I’m still a student, I occasionally staff the reference desk at work, and it certainly wouldn’t be acceptable for me to refuse to learn the online databases just because my life would be simpler not to know.
September 5th, 2007 at 1:34 pm
I can’t imagine going back to snail mail and telephone for routine delivery of information. Email allows for quick and timely responses and is cost-efficient. That being said, we do have patrons (doctors and administrators included) who prefer to have things printed and sent to them. Our CEO does not like to have articles or table of contents sent via email. We routinely ask our patrons how they would like to receive the information and deliver as per their request. Hopefully, one day the librarian you spoke with will see the benefits of email and other technologies.
September 5th, 2007 at 1:36 pm
Excellent. I can see the value of unplugging from time to time. I guess we’ll just have to trust that this person knows her limitations. Seems odd, though… not to mention prohibitively limiting.
September 5th, 2007 at 1:40 pm
Yes, you were wrong. When working with customers (NOT patrons), remember….
The customer is ALWAYS right; the customer is ALWAYS right.
Whether or not to have email is her decision and has nothing to do with her right to an answer from you–however she wants it.
You definitely should have mailed the printout to her.
September 5th, 2007 at 1:42 pm
Oh. My. God. And I get irritated when colleagues don’t respond to an email quickly–this would have sent me around the bend.
I think you reacted correctly. I mean, really, how is this any different from a librarian saying something like, “I just don’t want to know anything about call numbers, you know–they’re just too complicated. I always pass off requests to find a particular book to someone else.”
September 5th, 2007 at 1:47 pm
Judith, I would have mailed this without further thought if this had been a patron… but this was a librarian in one of our libraries! Maybe you’re right, though. I was just shocked to get this from a fellow professional….
September 5th, 2007 at 2:02 pm
Wow x 2. Emily, the only thing about your response to the email-hater is that you didn’t tell her exactly WHY you wouldn’t fax or mail the handout to her:
Them: Why not just put it in the bag??
Me: Because we email things here. I really think you should think about setting up an email account.
She may have benefited from hearing the actual reasons — because it’s wasteful of resources, most especially your time; because email is the most sensible and efficient way to send it; and because email is one of the most widely accepted practices in professional and business communication today. Etc. etc. etc.
Yes, it’s all painfully obvious, but it’s just possible that this person didn’t “get” it at some point and she never figured it out for herself. Unlikely, I grant you, since she sounds lazy and fearful, but you may have had a (small) window of opportunity to educate her.
I’m curious: Is this an “omg blog it and forget it” incident, or were you planning some sort of follow-up, either with her personally, or with her supervisor? What do you think is the best way to deal with people like this, especially if you might have to deal with them again?
September 5th, 2007 at 2:10 pm
I think you’re right, Mickey - in retrospect it seems so obvious that this may have been a great opening for a little discussion. But I’ll admit I was a bit surprised at the time, and not thinking about that. And I actually already slipped a comment about this incident into a conversation with her supervisor. Nothing too “tattle tale” or snarky… just enough to make her aware that this is what happened. It seemed to me that I had to say something, as this is something that could definietly impact this person’s service to our patrons.
September 5th, 2007 at 2:36 pm
Talk about one lazy librarian. Not so much the refusal to learn (which does gall me. People like that need to be weeded out of our profession pronto), but the fact the person simply passes the buck when it comes to computer issues in reference. As for you, hey, just send them the dang thing on the mail bag and get it over with. I guess in my view, I applaud you for calling them out, but why make the fuss? That is my bias/weakness. I would have simply sent it, then had a field day with him on my “other” blog. You can always ridicule them on the blog later. Then again, you do make clear you reacted in the spur of the moment. The deities may know what the heck I may have told them in a reactive moment (laughter would be likely in my case, followed by calling my colleagues, putting it on speakerphone and saying, “hey guys, check this dinosaur out.”)
A customer without e-mail? Sure, I can certainly see that. A librarian? That’s just not right. Time for him to join the 21st century with the rest of us (or retire). Best, and keep on blogging.
September 5th, 2007 at 3:25 pm
Wow. Just wow. I really can’t imagine how I would have answered it. Certainly when it’s a patron, you give them what they want and don’t question/judge their choices. But when this is a person in your library system who SERVES your patrons, it’s different. It’s fine to make a personal choice not to use e-mail for personal stuff, but at least knowing how to USE e-mail really should be a basic requirement of working in a library. If she is fielding questions from patrons about e-mail and can’t answer them, then she needs to learn how. It’s sort of like saying that you decided not to learn how to use the library databases because you don’t want to be overwhelmed by new things. Well, if you’re a reference librarian, this is part of the job. Same with e-mail in a public library; people must know how to answer the basic, everyday questions we get at our libraries.
That being said, I probably would have just mailed the handout and then perhaps would then have spoken to someone in a position of power about necessary basic competencies of librarians in the system. I wouldn’t put the blame on the staff member, because her superiors obviously are letting her stay in that ridiculous comfort zone. That should be part of a set of basic competencies required of anyone who works with the public at any library.
But, yeah, I would have been bowled over had I been on your end of the conversation.
September 5th, 2007 at 3:58 pm
It’s not all that surprising, really. I think you probably should have just held your tongue and mailed them the item. If a patron asked you the same thing, you would probably go ahead and mail it, right? You certainly are capable of mailing the item.
I’m not trying to excuse the other person’s behavior, though. I think sooner or later this librarian is going to get backed into a corner and have to account for their lack of willingness to learn to use email. But I don’t think that it is your place to back the other person into the corner about it.
September 5th, 2007 at 6:27 pm
I have a professor who doesn’t do email. This person also doesn’t respond to voicemail. So, that pretty narrows one’s communications options to either lurking outside the office as a means of communication or semaphore.
I’m not going to weigh in about what you should/shouldn’t have said or done because I think everyone else is doing a fine job of discussing those issues. What I will say is that I totally understand your frustration.
September 5th, 2007 at 10:20 pm
This is exactly why people don’t have any respect for librarians. Well done Emily.
September 5th, 2007 at 11:10 pm
Hmmm…. I have dealt with a similar situation some years ago at my former place of work. One of the staff members at a library in our consortium (who did work in reference as well as other positions - small library) did not “do” email either. After I expressed some surprise, I just sent what they needed through inter-office mail. I did mention it to my boss and he confirmed that the other person’s supervisor was aware of their “preferences”.
My assumption was that their supervisor was comfortable with the level of service they were providing. I guess my feeling was that this person was my “customer” at the time and not just a colleague - therefore I should communicate with them in the way that they desire. Not sure if I would feel any differently now.
September 6th, 2007 at 10:34 am
WOW. Thanks everybody for your great comments. There have been so many in such a short time I just haven’t been able to respond to everyone.
I guess it all comes down to the fact that anyone in a customer service position can learn from reassessing the interactions they have with their customers. In this case, I know I didn’t handle things perfectly, and I think I’d do better next time. I just hope that there sn’t a next time for this particular issue.
Just for the record, I often mail, fax, personally deliver stuff for the folks out in our libraries. I was just a little (more than a little!) put off by this particular encounter. I just can’t imagine passing off what must be a reasonably large portion of my professional duties to colleagues just because I don’t want to learn to cope with something new in my life. But that’s for her supervisor to deal with, not me.
Maybe I’m just a little too used to standing my ground with a very stubborn and opinionated toddler. With him, I can’t give in. At work, sometimes I should just mail the damn thing and let it go.
Still, it’s irritating to run into something like this. Talk about giving librarians a bad name.
September 6th, 2007 at 10:35 am
This is amazing. A librarian who refuses to learn computer skills has no business being in that job. The reality is that in this world, patrons need help with those things, and passing off their questions to someone else is fair neither to the patrons or this person’s co-workers.
Honestly, I think you did the right thing. You shouldn’t have to make special arrangements for a librarian who refuses to do what they have a responsibility to do. You also shouldn’t have to explain why you didn’t want to just put it in the mailbag. If this person paid attention to how things are done these days, they would already know.
September 6th, 2007 at 10:41 am
BTW, it’s so funny how sometimes the things you just throw out there without much thought get the biggest response…
September 6th, 2007 at 4:15 pm
You did the right thing. This person needs to know she is an impediment to getting things done. I wonder what this person’s supervisor thinks of her resistance. Is the supervisor aware?
She needs to be sent to a training class post-haste. What does she do if no one else is available to answer email related questions? Send the person away without an answer? Horrors.
September 6th, 2007 at 4:30 pm
I think you reacted the right way, but mailing it in the end would have been preferable, and like you mentioned, you could have opened a dialog.
I’d also like to toss in that people like this are AWESOME to have on committees. It’s not what or fast they contribute, but how firmly grounding they can be. I had the privilege to be on a committee with a library page, who usually has 15 minutes a shift to check her email. Every time we discussed something on a project, she grounded us by saying, “I don’t need X, do why does everyone have to have X.” Every single time we were having technolust aspirations of of glory, she always brought us back with “Why?”
She didn’t say it to be derogatory, she said it to be honest and truthful. Sometimes in the fast paced world of “hah hah! I replied back first!” In the end, her feedback helped us not to overstep our bounds, but provided the content that was needed in the format that was needed, without a whole bunch of unnecessary flair and gusto.
Now, as such, with the help of her restraint, we’ve got smooth process for delivering information system wide without over stuffing e-mail boxes…and probably an extra 10 emails that would have arrived in her email box to glance at every 15 minutes.
September 7th, 2007 at 12:48 am
[…] I personally don’t think it’s important that librarians jump on the bandwagon and become 100% proficient in every “next big thing,” but it’s also not a good idea to ignore these new modes of communication entirely. (As is the case with librarians who “don’t do email.”) […]
September 7th, 2007 at 8:20 am
I think your response was just fine. But there is a deeper management problem at play here. I started requiring everybody in my library (I mean everybody — librarians, paraprofessionals, students) to communicate via email over a dozen years ago. To allow a professional librarian to “opt out” of email because they don’t want to get “sucked in” would be absolutely unacceptable.
September 7th, 2007 at 9:49 am
[…] was reading a post on Library Revolution blog entitled “I don’t do email”. This post inspired me to comment (which I found […]
September 10th, 2007 at 3:31 pm
I can really understand where you were coming from. I am the Tech Supervisor for a small Ohio Library. Several years ago (when we were all using Win3.11 & just learning Win95) I was teaching a class on file management. You know, the kind that helps people find the files they create. My students were fellow staff members. One of them repeatedly asked “Do we “REALLY NEED” to know this?” I spent about 15 minutes of trying to explain that finding what you create keeps you from having to re-create it. That everything you learn is going to make you more valuable to our patrons and the Library as a whole. I finally gave up. About 8 years later (she had gotten married and quit to raise their kids) she came to me one day at the Library and stated that she wished she had listened to me back then. Seems she had started on a photo scanning project of her own and had copies of what she had scanned, scattered all over her computer and had no idea what or where they all were. Funny how, things that don’t seem important can come back to bite you. ;^)
September 11th, 2007 at 7:13 pm
Wow, how totally snotty. You were 100% wrong and completely out of line. How dare you try to force your opinion on someone else? If I were this person I would definitely be making a formal complaint against you.
Unbelievable.
September 12th, 2007 at 12:29 pm
Cassandra,
I guess I can see where you might have thought my response wasn’t as accommodating as it could have been. I agree with that… that’s one of the reasons why I wanted to share the exchange and think about the way that I reacted a bit. I was really pleased with the number of constructive comments I got about this, and I don’t know that I would handle the situation the same way again… or at least not exactly. I’m happy to learn from the experience.
But I didn’t think it was as terrible as you seem to. Maybe what is lost in the post is the fact that the whole conversation and the followups I had were all very friendly in tone, and I don’t think that anyone involved came away from it with bad feelings.
I also have to say that I think there is a huge difference between forcing my opinion on someone else and what happened here. This is not a patron, or some obscure technology here. We are talking about a professional librarian refusing to do something that is a huge part of her job! I don’t care what she does in her personal life, but at work sometimes we need to do things we don’t like to do or engage in activities that aren’t a part of our personal lives.
I don’t know about where you are, but here email is incredibly important for communication within the libraries themselves and between the 56 public libraries in our county. I can’t imagine how she fulfilled her duties without it, even disregarding the customer service aspects of the issue. It’s 2007, for God’s sake. And the notion that she should have the option to unload part of her work on her colleagues because of this refusal really got to me.
Like I said, the encounter wasn’t perfect by any means. But I also don’t think it was as simple as me being snotty.
October 6th, 2007 at 10:13 pm
[…] I don’t want to turn into someone who refuses to get with the times–for instance, someone who doesn’t “do” e-mail–but I think this one’s not life or death. I am fortunate to have many good friends and […]