As a new hire at my public library system, I received the mandatory day-long Customer Service seminar last Monday. It was what it was. Customer service training is one of those things that is hard to pull off without sounding cliché. I’ve taught seminars like these, and I apologise for the wacky acronyms.
But, the up-shot this time was this wacky spot-the-stereotype video. I’ve been humming the little shanty all week, in between listening to better things .
What I took away from the CS training day was a thought about what and why we call people who use/visit the library. The happy, dancy video above uses “patron” (which some people don’t like), and “user” is a little loaded… as is client (which always makes think “person visiting a social worker”). All the terms have strikes against them. Nothing quite fits because the variety of people and ways a library is engaged by its community are far too complex to fold under one term.