The following is a selection of the various initiatives implemented this week.
GREAT.
The library at Illinois State University at Urbana-Champaign has established guidelines for its users. They are called “GREAT Customer Service Guidelines,” and each term describes the library’s attitude toward its users.
G:Greet all customers and make them feel welcome
R: Respect cultural and other personal differences
E:Evaluate and clarify customer’s expectations
A:Address and respond to customer’s needs
T:Thank and verify that needs have been met
This guideline is a necessary attitude to have when dealing with users in a library, and I am impressed that the service is based on this guideline. I would definitely like to expand this kind of approach to my own library.
DiSC
Social constructivism says that people change depending on the environment in which they grow up and the people with whom they interact. The workshop classified people’s characteristics into 12 patterns, and participants learned how they should respond according to each characteristic. Although there are multiple such diagnoses depending on one’s perspective, the workshop was a good opportunity to learn again about oneself and how to work well with other types of people. My organization already shares and conducts workshops on several diagnoses, including “social types,” but this was the first time I had taken such a systematic workshop, so it was a very good learning experience.
Strategic Foresight
When we think about strategies for the future of libraries, we need to refer to a variety of ideas.
This work gave me a lot of ideas on how to think about this. Below I would like to introduce PESTLE Trends.
PESTLE stands for Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Legal, and Environmental. Each of these should be taken into consideration when developing library strategies.We feel that people working in libraries tend to be myopic, for better or worse. Therefore, we need to keep these ideas in mind at all times as we think about library strategies.
In addition to this, he shared the following reference information with us.
IFLA Trend Report 2024 (https://www.ifla.org/wp-content/uploads/ifla-trend-report-2024.pdf)
EDUCAUSE Holizon Report 2025 (https://library.educause.edu/resources/2025/5/2025-educause-horizon-report-teaching-and-learning-edition)
Futures Wheel (https://online.visual-paradigm.com/knowledge/decision-analysis/what-is-futures-wheel/)
OCLC
We toured the headquarters of OCLC and were amazed at the history of OCLC and its growth and evolution. In addition, we were introduced to the “New Model Library” published by OCLC.
I am ashamed to admit that I had not checked this report, so it was very good to know about it.
I was hoping to expand it to my workplace while reviewing the contents again.
(https://www.oclc.org/research/areas/library-collaboration-research/new-model-library.html)
