or 13 French Librarians Can’t Be Wrong
Bibliotechonomique
On Monday morning we met at the Gard du Nord for an 8:25 train to Cologne. Due to mechanical problems, we had to change trains in Brussels and arrived in Cologne 35 minutes late.
There are 80,000 to one million Turks living in Cologne, where 40% of residents are of “immigrational background.” The library’s services include life-long learning programs and intercultural offers. The library has a five-part program for encouraging immigrants to use the library. They range from training the staff to welcome foreigners to visiting the schools to encourage foreign-born students to come to the library to encouraging these students to bring their family members to the library. Staff are also trained to work with people who are illiterate both in German and their own language.
When we arrived in Cologne, we were served a buffet lunch at the Staatsbibliothek Köln while Hanalore Vogt, the director, gave a presentation about library management. I am impressed by her intelligence, dedication, imagination and creativity.
Later in the day we heard brief presentations on Intergrationskurse (assimilation courses for immigrants) and other programs such as an annual “Professions Day” on which high school students come to the library and talk to professionals about their work, and a cooperative agreement with a museum to provide exposure to other cultures and other religions of the world.
The Cologne library faces a platz (plaza or square) A Volkshochschule, a school offering adult education, and a soon-to-open museum also face the square. The city wants to make this area a kind of cultural center. In keeping with this idea, Hanalore has created a Kulturschaufenster (culture display window) on the ground floor next to the entrance to the library in a space that previously displayed used books for sale. In the window she displays items related to cultural events going on in and around the city.
The library is proud of its Heinrich Böll Archive. Böll was a native of Cologne, and the archive contains items associated with Böll as well as other writers with connections to the city of Cologne. It houses the furnishings from one of the offices in which Böll worked (They were donated to the library by Böll’s son.)as well as letters and other documents. Many of the documents, however, are reproductions or originals housed in other archives.
After saying that satisfied customers tell three people about their experience but dissatisfied customers tell 10 to 12 people about their experience, Hanalore spoke about some of her 50 rules of customer service. She said she would send us her 50 rules after Annie Dourlent, Chef de Service, Coopération - Relations Internales at the BPI, sends her our email addresses.
When a customer asks for books, the Cologne library gives the customer a wish card on which to write as much information as he or she knows about the book and his or her name and contact information. The library will try to obtain the book within three days. If the library thinks the book is not suitable for its collection and the customer has provided contact information, the library will contact the customer and tell the customer that it cannot fulfill his or her wish.
Hanalore pays close attention to customer feedback, and provides a place for customers to provide it. Inside the entrance to the library is a box into which customers can put their Anregungen, Lob, and Kritik (Suggestions, Praise and Complaints).
Management in tough economic times is always more difficult. Hanalore spoke of some prizes her library in Wurzburg awarded to children and young adults when she was operating under a tight budget. These included spending a night at the library, visiting the mayor in her office and taking the children or young adults to places in the city that wouldn’t be accessible to them otherwise. She also partnered with a telephone service provider on an SMS Song Lyrics Contents in which contestants had to write lyrics the length of an SMS text message.
Hanalore’s creativity extends to public relations as well. (She likes to tell politicians that the library lends a book every seven seconds.) In Wurzburg she arranged a promotion with a winery that marketed wine in a bottle with a picture of the library on it. The library received part of the proceeds on the sale of each bottle. She is trying to do something similar with a brewery in Cologne. She ran a promotion with a local bank during the Cologne Marathon with the slogan Laufen Gutes Tun (Running Does Good) through which runners obtained pledges and the library received money for every mile they ran. Among Hanalore’s rules for library public relations are: Surprise—do unexpected things; and Present normal work differently.
Hanalore is putting a café into a space that is now used for paperbooks. She is having the popular magazines moved to the area, and she is having a marketing and design company that has worked for the library design a merchandising display for the paperbacks.
The Cologne library offers e-ausleihe (e-loans) of audiobooks and e-books and it offers free delivery of audiobooks to the blind. The library also is experimenting with e-loan of music but without much success. Vendors want the library to pay per download, but the library would like to negotiate a fixed fee. Either way, the library would have to charge for the service, and older customers prefer checking out CDs to e-loaning music files that will be automatisch zuruckgegeben (automatically given back), and younger customers simply prefer to download music (legally or illegally) from the internet for free. See http://www.onleihe.net.
The library has a very impressive collection of sheet and recorded music. It also has a music room with a grand piano, which it rents for €2.50 an hour. Customers who want to use it to practice or give a recital have to book it at least two weeks in advance.
Another thing the library is experimenting with is connecting users’ profiles with the acquisition tool so that customers automatically get an email telling them that the library has added a new item on a topic of interest to them to its collection.
The Cologne library posts the bestseller list from Der Spiegel, the German news magazine, just as American libraries post the best seller list from The New York Times. The library gives customers the option of “renting” best sellers for €2.00 for two weeks if all copies that circulate for free are checked out. The library acquires the extra copies through an arrangement with its vendor. The number of extra copies the vendor sends depends on the book’s position on the best seller list.
Librarians in the Young Adult Area teach customers how to plan and conduct effective search strategies. The young adults write their search strategy on Suchstrategien (search strategy forms) with the help of the librarians. Was Google nicht findet (What Google doesn’t find) is written on a blackboard behind the information desk in this area.
Library assistants undergo three years of formal training at the Cologne library. During the second year several trainees are chosen to run a branch library where they do everything but provide reference service. During their third year, they serve as mentors to those in the next class who are chosen to run the library.
Das Kölnische Leben
From the library we walked to a restaurant not far from the Dom (cathedral) and the Hauptbanhof (main rain station), where we drank Kölsch, the local beer, and ate typical Rhineland food. Some librarians ordered wurst (sausage) that was two to three feet long. They were served plates of cabbage and fried potatoes. The sausages were served on long wooden planks placed in the middle of the table. Others ate the local version of sauerbraten. The sauce was slightly sweet and made with raisins. A bowl or apple sauce was served on the side.
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