Are We Listening?

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve asked myself why more people don’t take advantage of public library services. After all, beyond paying taxes that form the base of our revenue stream, we’re free! Why would anyone buy a novel at the bookstore when they can have it free of charge from us? Why is Netflix dominating the DVD market when our customers could get those same movies from us without a subscription fee?

I think the answer to the questions I’ve asked are related to the economic concept of consumer surplus. St. Louis Public Library’s library benefits valuation study describes consumer surplus as measuring the value that consumers place on a good or a service beyond what they have to pay for it. Essentially, a given service exhibits a high level of consumer surplus if there is significant cost to the consumer to obtain that service beyond what the monetary cost of purchasing the service.

Think about it. For $9 a month, Netflix offers unlimited DVD’s shipped for free directly to and from the customer’s house with no late fees. They even have streaming video now, too. So, Netflix costs a fair amount more than free DVD’s at the library but the ease of use of Netflix compared to that of most public libraries makes Netflix a no-brainer for millions of people. We librarians stand back, scratch our heads, and wonder why anyone would choose to pay for things we can give them for free. The problem is, we fail to take into account the costs associated with:

• using a catalog that is not as easy as finding what you want at Netflix
• finding a library location that isn’t too far from home and that’s open when you want it to be
• interacting with library staff who may or may not understand the concept of excellent customer service
• worrying about overdue fees
• having to deliver the item back to the library eating up valuable time and transportation costs.

Even buying the latest bestseller at the local Border’s is much more palatable to many people than waiting four weeks on a request list.

So what am I saying? That public libraries need to remake themselves in the image of Netflix or the local bookstore? I am not. We couldn’t manage that if we tried. I recently heard Joe Janes say, “don’t go chasing what you can’t catch”. In other words, it’s a fool’s errand to think libraries can compete with Netflix or Amazon. We just don’t have the resources (and, frankly, we don't have the same mission). That doesn’t mean we’re doomed, though. We aren’t, in fact; I’m sure of it. Libraries are beloved institutions in this country.

But! We still have to acknowledge the idea of consumer surplus if we expect to see even greater use by our customers (even after the economy turns around). What can we change about our libraries that will lower those “hidden” costs of using the library? Here are a few of my thoughts.

• We need responsive collections
• We need better systems for finding an item in the collection
• We need to consistently provide the kind of service that keeps folks coming back
• We need physical spaces that are useful, comfortable, and attractive
  
• We need to save their time.

Most important, though, we need to stop acting like we have all the answers. We need to ask the public what they want from us much more often than we do. Providing the mechanisms by which our users can tell us what they want from the library will allow us, if we use that information wisely, to dramatically reduce our consumer surplus relative to those companies that represent our competition.

Two formal methods (there are lots of less formal ways of listening to our customers) for collecting that information are customer needs assessments and library valuation studies. Both needs assessments and valuation studies, in different ways, will tell us exactly what we're doing right and what we're not relative to providing services our customers value. I'll be writing more about both approaches soon.