I subscribe to a great blog called "Good Experience," and it's all about getting companies (and marketing people within companies) to remember that the reason they are in business is the customer. And as such, they should focus their business on the customer experience.
Today's installment had a nice interview with Barry Schwartz, the author of The Paradox of Choice.
Read the interview about the paradox of choice and how it affects the customer experience.
The gist of Schwartz's theory says that the less choices we're faced with in a purchasing decision, the more likely we are to actually make a purchase. With 200 choices, we are overwhelmed and walked away. With 12, we might actually pick something and buy it.
I wonder what happens when we apply the choice-paradox theory to our concept of the library. It's our library-sacred cow that more choice of materials is always better. Right? I want every iteration of The Tempest that is available and I want it at my fingertips--FRBRized, no less.
But what happens when we apply Schwartz's theory to information-shopping? If we remove the price tag (library materials are "free" to the consumer) then the choice rules don't apply? Or is the idea of weeding through information choices applying, while purchasing choices are not?
Food for thought, my friends.
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2 comments:
Just think about the new (or not so new) student who comes to the library and is presented with 300 databases to choose from. No wonder they'd rather use Google!
The FBFR link via blogger doesn't work. Correct link, I think, is http://www.ifla.org/VII/s13/frbr/frbr.pdf
I can't get even members of my staff to frequent and know say 30 of the 150+ databases to which our library subscribes. They show little to no interest in learning new ones--very sad. We do spend a lot of money on these, but I'm sure Google gets more hits on our public access computers.
Of course, I do understand why the paradox of choice hits so many of us. I grew up outside the USA, where we had maybe 3 choices of cold cereal. When I see the cereal aisle in a large grocery store, I am overwhelmed. And buying (or thinking of buying) a new used car seems overwhelming...I do think the same paradox applies to things purchased or not in the case of library materials. We have to make too many little and big decisions all the time. It's fatiguing. But I'm not coming up with genius ideas to alleviate that stress in libraries, because of course, I do want it all--every Ariel in every cloven pine that's out there--and all the commentary!
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