THE PIPS PROJECT AT ASTON: REVIEWING THE MANAGEMENT OF THE PUBUC INFORMATION POINTS IN THE LIBRARY AND INFORMATION SERVICES, ASTON UNIVERSITY
| Pages | 16-21 |
| Date | 01 March 1993 |
| Published date | 01 March 1993 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/01435129310027228 |
| Author | Nick Smith |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science |
LIBRARY MANAGEMENT
The PIPs Project
at
Aston
REVIEWING THE MANAGEMENT OF THE PUBLIC INFORMATION POINTS IN THE
LIBRARY AND INFORMATION SERVICES, ASTON UNIVERSITY
Nick Smith
INTRODUCTION
The Library and Information Services (LIS)
at Aston University attaches great importance
to the quality of its customer interfaces,
including the service provided from the
staffed public information points (PIPs) on
the ground and third floors. Over the last
five or six years, we have carried out various
exercises to review and evaluate the services
provided from the public information points,
and this article describes the latest review in
some detail. It is based on an executive
summary and presentation that were
originally prepared by this author for the
Policy Making and Strategic Management
course held at Loughborough University
during the Summer of
1991 [1].
BACKGROUND
The project could be considered to be the
second stage of an ongoing review of the way
in which LIS provides public advice and
information services to its customers.
Precursors to the first stage of the review
include a statistical survey of the Enquiries
Service, and a seminar at Aston by Roy
Williams, Head of Learning Resources at the
(then) Polytechnic of North London, entitled
"Measuring the Quality of Reference
Service". Roy's talk was based on the results
of unobtrusive testing[2] of the reference
services provided by 20 university and
polytechnic libraries in the UK (one of which
was Aston), and for us it raised some
pertinent questions about such matters as the
lack of a written reference services policy,
lack of formal staff training, and
involvement of support staff in enquiry
work.
Subsequently, a Reference Services Project
Group, consisting of a mixture of professional
and support
staff,
was set up within LIS. The
major outcome of that project was the
proposal that the General Enquiries Desk on-
the ground floor, staffed by two persons,
should be converted into two separate public
information points — one on the ground
floor, and one on the third floor that would
be an integral part of the new Business
Information Resources area. The ground floor
PIP (GIP) would handle general enquiries and
those relating to the first (Periodicals) floor,
while the third floor PIP (3IP) would deal
with all enquiries relating to the third and
second floors — although it was anticipated
that the majority of enquiries to the latter
point would relate to business information
and, especially, to the new electronic sources
that would be installed there. A number of
other proposals were also implemented,
including transferring all circulation-related
enquiries to the Service (Issues/Loans)
Counter, and improving self-service support
by making available on open-access most
request forms (e.g. for inter-library loans) and
a range of revised information leaflets.
Although the restructuring of the PIPs
seems to have been relatively successful,
particularly in terms of developing support
for business information enquiries, some
factors were either omitted from consideration
or not subsequently followed-up. For example,
in the first phase of the project our customers
were not consulted about their needs or
perceptions of the service; a Customer Care
Policy was not produced; staff training needs
were not addressed; no ongoing evaluation of
the service was initiated (although the survey
of enquiries was updated); and, furthermore,
The author would like to thank all of the
members of the PIPs Project Group for their
assistance in carrying out this project.
Library Management, Vol. 14 No. 3, 1993, pp.
16-21,
© MCB University Press, 0143-5124
16
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