Comments on: Oh Jane, How I http://www.librarystuff.net/2007/10/05/oh-jane-how-i/ The library weblog dedicated to resources for keeping current and professional development Sat, 13 Mar 2010 04:42:03 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: Mark K. http://www.librarystuff.net/2007/10/05/oh-jane-how-i/comment-page-1/#comment-13975 Mark K. Fri, 05 Oct 2007 22:21:26 +0000 http://www.librarystuff.net/2007/10/05/oh-jane-how-i/#comment-13975 Successful businesses achieve product/market fit. This generally involves some kind of market segmentation: pursuing some customers at the expense of others. This thinking makes me nervous when applied to libraries, for the same reason that "running the police department like a business" makes me nervous. (With the exception of libraries embedded in for-profit organizations). Responsive, respectful, effective, excellent service is *not* dependent on a profit motive--whether that profit is literal, figurative, or somewhere in between (as in making funding sources happy). Nor does a profit motive guarantee it, as any trip through corporate customer service hell will show. Successful businesses achieve product/market fit. This generally involves some kind of market segmentation: pursuing some customers at the expense of others. This thinking makes me nervous when applied to libraries, for the same reason that “running the police department like a business” makes me nervous. (With the exception of libraries embedded in for-profit organizations).

Responsive, respectful, effective, excellent service is *not* dependent on a profit motive–whether that profit is literal, figurative, or somewhere in between (as in making funding sources happy). Nor does a profit motive guarantee it, as any trip through corporate customer service hell will show.

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