Recent library experiences made me think of two more items for the list of services I’ve proposed as a standard suite of public library offerings.
Order tracking. I’ve submitted a few ILL requests to my library in the past 2-3 weeks and have no idea of their status. For all I know, my requests may not have even been received. It would be awesome if I could simply log in to my secure library account and check status. (And, if the system was well-designed it could serve up an “advertisement” for a new program or service, present me with a poll or a reminder to donate to my library.)
Search library events by proximity. The other night while researching a blog post, I browsed library websites in my area. Some of the scheduled programs looked interesting although I won’t take the time to search these sites again. The value of the results wasn’t worth the time spent to retrieve them. Now, it would be a different story if I could log in to my secure library account, enter a smart event search (that indexed a number of fields on the back end), plug in my zip code and indicate how far I was willing to travel and be presented with a single list of events. It would be even better if the system gave me the option to turn the query into an email alert when new programs that matched my criteria were posted. (These “content” emails would be another vehicle to advertise or solicit feedback.)
How to pay for these fancy systems you ask? Actually, I’ve got some ideas on that …
