Library Camp by c_l_b on Flickr
Jo Alcock, (who has published a good post about the day generally,) (see also Jennifer Yellin's post,) proposed a session on Learning from Retail based on the ideas of Paco Underhill. Since I had written a paper on the subject and implemented some of the ideas in Essex Libraries six years ago I was keen to get involved and, with Jo's permission, we agreed to present the session together.
I have been fascinated by Underhill's ideas for years. Working for a public library service we were often told that the library service was in competition with shops and could learn from them, and I had often heard that there were people who proclaimed which shelves attracted people most, how to use light to attract users and generally how people behaved on shops, but it was difficult to get any information about who these gurus were. After much research of subject headings and terminology I finally discovered that these people were originally trained as anthropologists and that Paco Underhill had developed the science of shopping with his firm Envirosell. His books are available in forty editions and twenty seven languages.
Underhill's team have spent thousands of hours trailing people in shops to see how they behave (often quite differently from how they say or even think they behave.)The study of human behaviour informs rationalised theories on best use of space and design. Retailers are acutely aware of how different sectors of their products are performing, and they manipulate the products and the product marketing in response.
Since there was another group who were interested in Libations in libraries, or rather using flexible zones in libraries to define separate areas where different users and activities can take place, we decided to merge the session with that group. As it turned out that session was planned by a company, Red Quadrant,(Ben Taylor) and librarian Emma who has implemented some of the flexible zoning areas in libraries. Rather than being phased about the merging, Ben and Emma were very gracious and positive. Fifty five people turned up to discuss the subject and shared lots of ideas and information about how retail related activities took place in their libraries: in some US libraries, the library is closed and the staff spend the day behaving as users, so that they experience any frustrations of using the services (SwissArmyLibrarian was mentioned in this context.) It was important to develop marketing to partner organisations (e.g. council for voluntary services) to reach members to their specialist contact lists. The importance of the head of service working on the frontline was emphasised. The work of Fiona Emberton, consultant at John Stanley, and formerly of Marks and Spencers, was praised.
Jo and I had agreed to bring along Paco Underhill books to share as visual resources: Ben bought one to add to the Red Quadrant library so I was very glad about that and now I will only have to return one to Amazon. (phew)
I attended a related session on Marketing later: 'Libraries should be marketed on TV.''British people despise free things' A marketing expert with an NHS background explained how marketing theory emphasises one particular product to one particular user group e.g. 'if you're going on holiday to a beach here's a reading list' or 'books for Dad's n' lads' etc. Seasonal advertising was always a good idea, she said.
The value of fines was challenged: fines income makes up only 1% of library income and 'amnesties' were advocated: where users were 'forgiven' all their fines if they enrolled a child in their family to the reading week: new users were of far more value to users than fines.
Jo Alcock, (who has published a good post about the day generally,) (see also Jennifer Yellin's post,) proposed a session on Learning from Retail based on the ideas of Paco Underhill. Since I had written a paper on the subject and implemented some of the ideas in Essex Libraries six years ago I was keen to get involved and, with Jo's permission, we agreed to present the session together.
I have been fascinated by Underhill's ideas for years. Working for a public library service we were often told that the library service was in competition with shops and could learn from them, and I had often heard that there were people who proclaimed which shelves attracted people most, how to use light to attract users and generally how people behaved on shops, but it was difficult to get any information about who these gurus were. After much research of subject headings and terminology I finally discovered that these people were originally trained as anthropologists and that Paco Underhill had developed the science of shopping with his firm Envirosell. His books are available in forty editions and twenty seven languages.
Underhill's team have spent thousands of hours trailing people in shops to see how they behave (often quite differently from how they say or even think they behave.)The study of human behaviour informs rationalised theories on best use of space and design. Retailers are acutely aware of how different sectors of their products are performing, and they manipulate the products and the product marketing in response.
Since there was another group who were interested in Libations in libraries, or rather using flexible zones in libraries to define separate areas where different users and activities can take place, we decided to merge the session with that group. As it turned out that session was planned by a company, Red Quadrant,(Ben Taylor) and librarian Emma who has implemented some of the flexible zoning areas in libraries. Rather than being phased about the merging, Ben and Emma were very gracious and positive. Fifty five people turned up to discuss the subject and shared lots of ideas and information about how retail related activities took place in their libraries: in some US libraries, the library is closed and the staff spend the day behaving as users, so that they experience any frustrations of using the services (SwissArmyLibrarian was mentioned in this context.) It was important to develop marketing to partner organisations (e.g. council for voluntary services) to reach members to their specialist contact lists. The importance of the head of service working on the frontline was emphasised. The work of Fiona Emberton, consultant at John Stanley, and formerly of Marks and Spencers, was praised.
Jo and I had agreed to bring along Paco Underhill books to share as visual resources: Ben bought one to add to the Red Quadrant library so I was very glad about that and now I will only have to return one to Amazon. (phew)
I attended a related session on Marketing later: 'Libraries should be marketed on TV.''British people despise free things' A marketing expert with an NHS background explained how marketing theory emphasises one particular product to one particular user group e.g. 'if you're going on holiday to a beach here's a reading list' or 'books for Dad's n' lads' etc. Seasonal advertising was always a good idea, she said.
The value of fines was challenged: fines income makes up only 1% of library income and 'amnesties' were advocated: where users were 'forgiven' all their fines if they enrolled a child in their family to the reading week: new users were of far more value to users than fines.
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