Self‐service in libraries: an overview
| Published date | 01 January 1997 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/eb040617 |
| Date | 01 January 1997 |
| Pages | 3-7 |
| Author | Krister Lagerborg |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management |
Self-service
in
libraries:
an
overview
by Krister Lagerborg, former Head
of IT
Department, National Library
for
Psychology
and
Education, Sweden
Introduction
An overview article about self-service ought
to
start with
a
definition of the concept. Although
many
of
us
have some idea of what constitutes
self-service,
it is
difficult
to
find
a
good definition.
None of the encyclopaedias
I
examined
had a
separate entry
for
self-service.
The
concept
ap-
pears though
in
articles about retailing
and
self-service restaurants.
In the
tenth edition of the
Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary
the
following definition was given:
"the
serving
of
oneself
(as
in a
restaurant
or
service station) with
goods
or
services
to be
paid
for at a
cashier's desk
or
by
means of a coin-operated mechanism". This
definition
is
old-fashioned
and
much too limited.
It
does
not
cover
all the
aspects of self-service that
have been made possible through technical devel-
opment.
At
the
end
of this article
I
will come back
to
a
definition more applicable
to
self-service
for
libraries,
but I
would like
to
start with
an
overview
of different aspects important
to a
self-service
library.
Self-service
in a
historical
perspective
During
the
last decades
the
importance
of self-
service
has
continuously grown
in
many service
industries
and has
today become
so
much
a
way
of
life
as to be
taken
for
granted. This
has not
always
been
the
case. Self-service first appeared, with
some exceptions, during
the
second half of the
20th
century
and
there
has
been
a
tremendous change
towards self-service during
the
last
20 to 30
years.
Three main factors could
be
identified behind this
development: social, economic
and
technical.
Social development
During
the
20th
century there
has
been
a
general
move towards
a
more liberal society, which
is
crucial
for
the philosophy behind self-service.
In
the past, customers were viewed
as
untrustworthy,
unable
to
make their own choices,
and
this was
at
odds with
the
obvious disadvantages
of self-
service; increased risk
of
theft, misuse
and the
risk
that customers could make wrong choices. This
is
a major factor that
can
explain
why
self-service
became
a
norm
in
certain countries
and
libraries,
while
it is
almost non-existant
in
others.
Pharmacies serve
as a
good illustration of this
conflict between self-service
and the
wish
to
supervise customers' choices.
In
most countries,
a
prescription
is
required from
a
physician
to
obtain
most kinds of medicine.
The
medicine
is
protected
behind
the
counter
at the
pharmacies
and can
only
be dispensed
by
the pharmasist.
In
Sweden there
has been
a
minor move towards self-service
in
pharmacies over the last
ten
years
and
some kinds
of medicine
are now
available
on
open shelves.
Western democracies
are so
used
to
open shelves
and self-service
in
grocery shops that anything else
seems very strange,
but
if one travels south
or
east
one does
not
have
to go far to see
how this
changes.
In
Latvia,
for
example, grocery shops
with open shelves
are a
new phenomenon.
Economic development
Increased labour costs
in
comparison with
raw
material
and
machine prices
led to a
high grade
of
automation within industry. For the service sector,
self-service
has
become
an
answer
not
only
to
increased labour costs,
but
also
to the
higher level
of
demand.
The
disadvantages
of
self-service
—
higher levels of theft, wastage
and
other kinds
of
misuse
—
are
of
secondary importance.
In
France,
for example,
the
number
of
larger food stores
based
on
self-service grew from
50 in
1960,
to
4,700
in
1982, while
the
number of small food
retailers fell from 130,000
to
60,000.
Technical development
The rapid development within
the
data
and
telecommunication sectors opened
up
possibilities
previously unimaginable. This development
is
most obvious
in the
banking
and
financial sectors.
Customers need never enter
a
bank
for
routine
transactions,
as
these
can be
carried
out via
Auto-
mated Teller Machines (ATMs),
the
telephone,
or
more recently over the Internet.
In
Sweden, four
financial institutions offered stock-trading over
the
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