Affect of Service The Bates College Library is unabashedly a service organization. Both student and faculty respondents rated our service ethic and service delivery as high as any college community could expect. Ratings for giving users individual attention were particularly high from both faculty and student users, as were ratings for understanding the needs of users. Faculty members also ranked the knowledge and courtesy of the staff exceptionally high. Respondents’ comments "Student workers (some, not all) are a major detriment to service at the library." "The non-student (professional) employees are excellent, the student workers often know less that I do about the library, policies, etc. and are frequently impolite." "I can always rely on library staff to assist me when I simply cannot find the information I need on my own. They are always helpful, respectful, and patient." "The people in the library have always tried their hardest to help me out even when things were hopeless, i.e. trying to recover some paperwork from a disk that went bad." Library's Response The comments above reflect the wide range of responses received to questions about the quality of service provided by library staff and student assistants. Please allow us to respond to the criticism first. Every fall Ladd Library hires about 30 new students to work at the public service stations (circulation and audio desks). The total Public Service Student work force consists of about 45 students. As you can imagine, training is a major issue with this kind of turnover. We hire a lot of first-year students. Training takes at least two weeks of intensive staff labor for each student. Then we frequently lose these trained students to other jobs on campus, and to JYA and JSA programs. Thus, we are constantly covering the public service points with people who have a less than ideal amount of experience with the library. We certainly have many wonderful students that take the work seriously. On the other hand, we frequently have students who have never held a job before. We end up teaching the basics, such as sticking to a schedule, dealing with time sheets, and explaining the consequences of not coming to work, being tardy, etc. Our training program is quite good, and many Bates students go on to pursue careers in library and information professions. We can do better, however. As an attempt to improve public service at Ladd we have implemented a new program that will require more drills on the finer points of library service and use this method to step up service provided by student assistants. Please remember that a Library staff member is always available to help should a student assistant not be able to provide the level of service required. In response to the positive comments received, we appreciate your feedback. It is nice to be noticed and appreciated. Access, Reference and Help Desk Services continually strive to provide the highest quality service in one of the busiest locations on campus.