Reflection on UXLibs

A couple of weeks ago I was luck enough to attended the UXLibs-in-a-day workshop, which was held here in Edinburgh. The event was run by Andy Priestner, who has a successful career as both a Business Librarian and is involved in running training events with the UXLibs brand across the country. Priestner is also publishing a book, and runs an annual three day conference. The workshop looked at using ethnographic methodology to study Library users, with Priestner saying that these methods were preferable to other KPIs such as surveys. We were treated to an overview of ethnography, and introduced to ten ethnographic methods that are suitable for use in Library Spaces.

More sticky notes published under a Attribution 2.0 Generic Lisence (CC BY 2.0) by elitatt available at: https://flic.kr/p/8yeVtF

While I found the content interesting, I could find very little that would be usefully translated into my work. As much as I am interested in space planning and service design, these aren't things that form part of my position description. One thing that I did think had been overlooked is that most people in Libraries already work with an ethos founded on continual improvement, especially if you are following Customer Service Excellence standards. I found that many of the methods covered were time consuming, meaning that I would have to negotiate for release from my other responsibilities to make time for this kind of research.

"The chief cause of problems is solutions" - Eric Severeid

I was also struck by the fact that many of the changes made a result of or in response to ethnographic research simply appeared to be common sense. If the teams responsible for space planning had invested some forethought before implementing the previous systems, then the whole drawn-out process of ethnographic research followed by the eventual redesign could be avoided.

The whole concept of ethnographic methods in Libraries is a popular topic at the moment. A raft of journal articles and books have appeared since 2012, and as I mentioned above there is now an annual three-day conference. I did think that the methods used and concepts discussed could be used more widely by everyone involved in student spaces - not just libraries. We could apply the same methods to student inductions, welcome days, cafeteria design etc. I feel that the underlying principles of good design apply more to the Higher Education experience than they do specifically for Libraries.