News Library News Online
Vol. 23, No.1/Fall 2000

Table of Contents
Regular Features

New This Month

News Library News
SLA News Division Home

 

Marcia MacVaneSmall Libraries
By Marcia MacVane

For smaller libraries, dealing with the normal archiving and research responsibilities creates enough workload to keep staff busy. Add to this mix the duties of handling public requests and you have the ingredients for a soup of stress and pressure. However, many newspapers have always been open to the public; indeed, the public seems to believe that since they buy and/or read the newspaper, they have every right to ask questions and expect answers.

This can present quite a quandary for libraries struggling to do more in the newsroom - more research, more working directly with the reporters, more EVERYTHING! - and still honor the past practice of helping the public with their requests.

Here at the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram we have devised a schedule which works well MOST of the time. We have set aside three days each week and three hours each of those days when we will let people make appointments to come in and do their own research. We have a table set up where we can keep an eye on them. (Clippings have been known to walk out the door in the past!) There is a copy machine available (for which we charge) should they decide not to take notes and prefer to copy the clips. We suggest that they call and confirm on the morning of their appointment in case we have something come up which would deplete our resources. That part of our 'public policy' works quite well. We have the occasional walk-in which we try to accommodate if the request is not too time-consuming.

We also have a public email address. This email is checked daily by members of the staff on a rotating basis and the requests are moved into their personal email accounts and answered as soon as possible. We handle an average of 75 email requests per month.

The part of our system which does NOT work very well is the telephone. We get calls all day and into the evening. We tried using a dedicated voice mailbox but found that it was taking more time than just talking to people immediately. People would not leave detailed messages about their request, just a name and telephone number to call back. When we would call back, we would get their answering machine. All too often, everyone was exasperated, so we decided to dump the special mailbox and answer the telephones in person whenever possible. We still get the incomplete messages, but most of the time we are able to answer the telephone and deal with the questions immediately.

For those questions needing more research and more time allocated, we recommend that the caller either make an appointment to come in for research himself or we give an estimate of cost for doing their research for them - payable in advance, of course. If we are too busy or short-staffed at that particular time, we simply explain the situation to the caller. Most of the time, they are willing to wait. We get our share of rude, demanding callers - how we deal with them could be the topic of another whole column! Suffice it to say, we squeeze some satisfaction from them by making them wait or making them pay!

We handle an average of about 175 public requests, not including email, per month.

At the Pantagraph (Bloomington, IL; circulation: 60,000), although not officially open to the public, the staff of three still handles many public requests. People walk in and telephone and the staff tries to direct them to other sources. Quick and easy questions do get responses. For lots of copying, they charge $1 per copy. Lawyers must pay $5 per copy with a flat fee of $100 for the research. They also handle all the photo reprint orders and offer a laminating service, so they have quite a bit of contact with the public. Diane Logsdon says, "When I took over the library many years ago, we were open to the public. That was in the clipping days and people would come in and go through clippings and I know some of them never got back. So one of the first things I did was close the library to the public. However, I feel that in an area our size, we must be willing to help the public in some way."

At the Worcester (MA) Telegram (105,000) and Gazette (128,000), the staff of five are available to the public by appointment (with approval from the chief librarian) for in-person research. They take telephone calls from 9-5, but others sneak in at night. Because their archives are available on-line, as many as possible are referred to this resource. They will provide publication dates to those not accessing the electronic archives. According to George LaBonte, "the version of the archives available on our Web page through MediaStream has been a godsend. It has cut telephone traffic noticeably, and most people who call are just as happy to do their own research and not to have to wait for us to get to it."

At the Patriot Ledger (Quincy, MA; 70,000-80,000), a staff of two full-time and two part-time employees TRY to stay closed to the public. They will allow local historical organizations, book authors, etc. to make appointments for research, but "not students of any type." Telephone calls present a different rule. According to Linda Chapman, "Our editor's policy is that if you answer the phone, you answer the question - this goes for everyone in the newsroom. Guess where everyone sends their calls?" They do some 'freebies' as well - providing dates so callers can purchase back issues and free obituaries is one example.

At the Daily Journal (Vineland, NJ; 18,000) a staff of one heroically manages the library. Although nominally closed to the public, Doug Fuhrmann takes telephone calls all day long. He handles the photo reprint requests and locates dates of articles so the callers can go to the public library and print from microfilm. "Public requests can get to be a real problem. I'm the only news/photo librarian on our staff plus am usually very heavily involved in some sort of research and writing project so my time is extremely valuable and limited."

At the Union Leader (Manchester, NH; 75,000), a staff of two handle telephone calls only. Depending upon the difficulty of the request, they decide whom to help on a call-by-call basis. They will provide at no charge dates of stories and for people with handicaps they will help as much as they can. If she could change anything, Claudette Gammon reports she would "add staff and open us to the public, like the Miami Herald's Information Store, because it is an untapped source of income for the library."

At the Bangor Daily News, a staff of two and one-half also handle telephone calls only. Staff will provide brief answers to questions about the newspaper's content, but as Charlie Campo says, "Anyone in their right mind would prefer to get their work done. Dealing with the public constantly interferes. Limited scheduled hours for public service just do not seem to address the problem. Would like to have the staff to man a public help desk."

From this sampling, it is fairly apparent that while we would all like to do more research for the public, staffing levels limit our resources and prevent full public access. Access to on-line archives has helped mitigate many public requests, but there still seems to be a great need for more personal research.

If you have an innovative way of handling public requests (short of hiring more staff, that is!), please let me know and I will follow up in a future column.


Marcia MacVane is Library Director at the Portland Press Herald / Maine Sunday Telegram. You can contact her at mmacvane@pressherald.com or (207) 791-6318.


News Library News
SLA News Division Home

The page was reformatted on 4/8/03. The content, including URLs and contact information, on this page has not been updated to preserve the historical record.

Comments about News Library News should go to the editor.
Comments about the Web site should go to the Webmaster: newsdivisionweb@yahoo.com