The Yes Library

Quietly, amongst ourselves, without gigantic ticks on the wall or slogans on the door, our workplace philosophy is that we are a Yes Library. Meaning, simply, that we say Yes: to book requests, to requests to use the library, to lead assemblies, to go on camp, to take extra classes, to mend someone's torn book, to put on sticking plasters, to make lists, to deliver, to join committees, to use the library for sleepovers, to do anything and everything we are asked.

Why? Because it is a constructive culture to have - library as the positive place. Because libraries are dispensable in some peoples eyes, storage units for topics loan books and computers, a job anyone could do. To get on with it, to get the job done, to suspend the prolonged use of Why. To please people - librarians love to satisfy a user's information need, and the Yes Library is an extension of that ideal. To add value to what we do, books and electronica and lessons plus, a kind of library philosophy 2.0.

This is underpinned by two beliefs: it is not my library, but the user's library - I am the caretaker; and the sense that if a user's first tangible approach to the library is met with a No, then at best they will leave with a negative perception of the library, and at worst will never come back.

There is no branding. Instead, every now and then, we discuss it at staff meetings, reinforcing that this is the library philosophy. Do staff buy in? Most of the time, sometimes with a query - sometimes it is workplace nature to want to say I have too much to do, it is not my job, this is not my beautiful life. I understand that, and attempt to encourage and reinforce through doing, by example, by passing on positive comments, by explicitly following the philosophy, by using it as a guideline when making tricky decisions.

There are exceptions. There are still rules. I won't be there at 9 o'clock at night; no you can't watch that on the library PC. But where possible, where reasonable and logical, our library mission is straightforward, positive and constructive. Yes?