Customer Service versus The Catalog

I took a temporary and part-time job at the Bank Street Bookstore. I wanted to know if there were essential differences in the way Bank Street moved books through the door and the way the Cooper Library performed the same task.

The store, which is owned by the Bank Street College of Education, is around 16’ x 36’ on the ground floor and maybe twice as large on the 2nd floor, by a rough eyeball measurement. The walls are lined with books, games, art supplies and toys. Maybe 13-15 people work at the store, stocking, working the cash-register, taking care of orders and helping find books for customers.

It is in this task, finding books for customers, that Bank Street is essentially different from Cooper Library. At Cooper, the librarians and staff are instructed to show patrons how to find a book and then back off and let the patron find it for themselves. Bank Street Bookstore is all about personally selling the book to the patrons. It is often not even possible for a patron to find a book without aid.

Several things allow a library patron to find a book: an online catalog which tells whether a book is available, a call number system which suggests where the book will be located, a cohesive shelf layout, signs and maps so that the patron can find where that call number should be. None of these clues are available to the patrons at Bank Street. The books are divided into sections based on subject matter, binding and intended audience. the physical location of each of these sections is dictated by demand, space, and line of sight. When I started working there, the store had little signage because the new manager had just moved many of the sections. There are no maps of the bookstore. The catalog of the bookstore is not available online, and there are no public computer terminals to provide access to the public.

Access to the catalog would not help bookstore patrons much anyway because the catalog does not have the robust search capabilities library workers expect. Searchers can not use more than three keywords, and there is no way to use multiple fields in the same search. Because the system has to use the college’s overworked servers, 20-60 second lags are common. The system does not need to be simple, fast, or self-explanatory because only highly trained staff will ever use it.

However frustrating this system was to a new hire, the experienced staff make it all work beautifully well. They offer each patron what they can’t get anywhere else: book recommendations tailored to their child’s needs and tastes. The staff memorize the subject matter, title and author of hundreds of children’s books. When galleys come into the store, the staff read them to get a sense of each book. Amazon provides easy searching.  Bank Street provides personal aid and interest.

Readers advisory and recommendation is not something the Cooper librarians or staff do. This is not to say that we don’t occasionally recommend books, but there is a general feeling that college students are the best judge of which books would suit their own research needs. I have only once been asked for a general book recommendation at the reference desk. However there is one thing that the Cooper librarians could do to engage users: simply greet them as they came through the door and ask if we can help with anything. It might give the users more of a sense that the reference librarian is tuned in and ready to help.

I really enjoyed working at Bank Street. It made me feel humble and made me think.

Also, why don’t bookstores have publicly available catalogs? Even the Strand, which has a great catalog, has no computers for patrons to use.

Photo tour of Bank Street Bookstore by Publishers Weekly