Twice within one week I encountered significant language barriers, once each at the two libraries in which I work. I’m in sympathy with the poor patron because we’re mutually frustrated by the inability to communicate. I want to help you find what you’re looking for; really! And I’m sure you’re not trying to be as unhelpful as it seems!
The first time was a disabled patron whose speech was just not very clear. Unfortunately, neither was his handwriting, as he authoritatively presented me with a note and wandered off. I spent some time trying to hunt up the apparent author (only to later discover that it was the patron’s name written at the top) but couldn’t reconcile it with the apparent title (from the words I could decipher). For that matter, I was having trouble confirming the existence of anything resembling what I took to be the title. I tried to elicit some more information from the patron, but we got nowhere. Fortunately, I’d noticed the patron had come in with another person and approached that patron for help. She told me that what he was really looking for was cowboy hats (I’d been searching for what looked like something about astronomy or physics). This, too, was a sort of vague information request, being secondhand and all, but I latched on to it as something. Fishing out a number of books with illustrations of cowboys (and their hats), I offered them to the patron, only to be initially rebuffed. I think this was more miscommunication, because he ended up coming back to them. I even found a book in the youth department that had two whole pages of just hats!
Conclusion: WIN/FAIL? I really don’t know. :/
The second occasion was at my subbing library. A gentleman came up to the desk with a heavy accent. Of course, I suppose he could’ve been thinking the same of me. Or maybe I just spoke too fast. In any case, we went back and forth a few frustrating rounds to determine he needed some forms off the Internet (though not the site he initially indicated). Now, policies on printing vary from library to library and strictness of application of said policy can vary from department to department and librarian to librarian. On the whole, we would like our patrons to go away with their information need satisfied. We also would like to get patrons acclimated to our services and learn to do things for themselves. And, crass as it is to point out, well, we’d like you to pay for your printing. Most people do, so it’s kind of unfair for one dude to get 300+ pages for free (yes, that’s happened – twice; it was a case of upper management making the call). This case wasn’t that bad, but it was more than 30 pages and… the patron asserted that he didn’t have a computer and wanted me to do it all for him.
See, this is an almost irresistible lure for me because I really, really want people not to be afraid of computers. It’s okay to sit down and poke at them! Ours come with a program called DeepFreeze, so no matter what you do (especially in terms of the capabilities of patrons who aren’t familiar with computers), it’ll all reset when you log off! I coaxed the patron over to the computers and logged him onto one, showing him the website, doing all the tricky bits and repeating that it was simple – he could just click here and here and his print would go to the printer. I tried to explain the printing process (get a card, pay for it, pages come out of the printer), but either the language barrier or a disinclination to pay for prints or both led the patron to wander off disgruntled.
We do not like it when patrons are disgruntled.
(Though I gotta say I was sans gruntle by this point myself.)
The patron huffed into a chair near the desk while another patron (who a) was apparently with the first, b) blithely interrupted me when the first patron was still trying to ask his question, and c) was familiar enough with computers that I wondered why he wasn’t trying to help the other patron.. :\ ) solicited my help in navigating some of the quirks of the express computers. In this interval, the first patron apparently retrieved his gruntledness enough to approach the desk again. I was still annoyed with the matter (and a bit with his manner), but this was the point to just get it over with and print his pages for him. He was willing to offer me a quarter, I believe it was, (which I graciously ignored) for the 15 or so pages I printed for him. He also admonished me not to “be mad with” him. I promised him I wasn’t mad, just vexed by the printer (it was out of paper). So he got about half of what he was seeking and that for free.
Conclusion: Sort of WIN for patron satisfaction, fairly FAIL for policy consistency, communication, and capitalist economy. …so, 3/4 (+/- some) FAIL.
In other news, I kind of need to learn to read and speak Polish.
Tags: languages, libraries, miscommunication, patrons, printing, reference
