Nice People Thread No. 15, a Cyber Summer

vivatifosi

Is it a good time to mention that many library authorities offer the full Encyclopedia Brittanica online (is children's, student and adult editions) free of charge from home via their library website?

Pyxis

vivatifosi wrote: »

Is it a good time to mention that many library authorities offer the full Encyclopedia Brittanica online (is children's, student and adult editions) free of charge from home via their library website?

Oh yes! :T

But my experience was way, way, way, before t'interweb was even a glint in Berners-Lee's eyes!


(Well, it may have been a nano-glint! )

ukmaggie45

vivatifosi wrote: »

Is it a good time to mention that many library authorities offer the full Encyclopedia Brittanica online (is children's, student and adult editions) free of charge from home via their library website?

Lovely article on Libraries in Grauniad yesterday.

Think I should re-join our Library - just need to get there to sign up I guess. Which is more than I can manage at present.

Pyxis

ukmaggie45 wrote: »

Lovely article on Libraries in Grauniad yesterday.

Think I should re-join our Library - just need to get there to sign up I guess. Which is more than I can manage at present.

You might be able to do that online.

PasturesNew

Pyxis wrote: »

I don't know what decade, or century, he was living in.

Having been the person that made those appointments, for a lot of companies, over several years, I can fully confirm that it is not because you're of one sex/another - sales people are only paid on commission and they have to make a sale to earn a living. All interested parties need to be present else the one being sold to listens for 2-3 hours (salesperson having cancelled their plans for that evening) ....and then they say "I'll have to ask ....."

That's all. Nothing else. All interested parties have to be present in order for the order form to stand a chance of coming out and being signed.

If you did sales and travelled, say, 20 miles and sat for 3 hours and missed your favourite TV programme or a meal with family .... you'd not be best pleased to hear "I'll have to ask....."

20 miles there, 20 miles back, a whole evening written off ... when there was no chance of a sale being closed.

Pyxis

PasturesNew wrote: »

Having been the person that made those appointments, for a lot of companies, over several years, I can fully confirm that it is not because you're of one sex/another - sales people are only paid on commission and they have to make a sale to earn a living. All interested parties need to be present else the one being sold to listens for 2-3 hours (salesperson having cancelled their plans for that evening) ....and then they say "I'll have to ask ....."

That's all. Nothing else. All interested parties have to be present in order for the order form to stand a chance of coming out and being signed.

If you did sales and travelled, say, 20 miles and sat for 3 hours and missed your favourite TV programme or a meal with family .... you'd not be best pleased to hear "I'll have to ask....."

20 miles there, 20 miles back, a whole evening written off ... when there was no chance of a sale being closed.

Except that I told him it was my house, my mortgage and my money buying the windows!
I wouldn't have signed anything on the spot, because I was asking for information....specs and a quote, which I would then compare with others. If the way they operate doesn't allow for that, then they don't get my custom. End of.

zagubov

This is the point. When you want to know a price and the person selling it wants you to invest in listening to a three-hour drum-roll in the middle of "And the price of your windows is........
....£XXXX"

No buyer will be best pleased to know that the price will double the next day, just in case you greedily felt you needed time to think about it. That rush to get you to sign could have been avoided if you'd gone in and said. "Here's the price. Use your time to consider and assess your funds and make your decision, and you don't need to listen to my three hours prattling which will either be about concepts that will be double-dutch to you or so obvious it doesn't need explaining.".

vivatifosi

ukmaggie45 wrote: »

Lovely article on Libraries in Grauniad yesterday.

Think I should re-join our Library - just need to get there to sign up I guess. Which is more than I can manage at present.

Thanks Maggie!

I've worked in information pretty much all of my working life. Nevertheless, even when I did my masters in the early noughties, I asked one of the big recruitment agencies specialising in information, libraries and KM and even then they said I'd be mad to do a Librarianship masters. I had worked more in info, they said there were too many librarians, too fewjobs and I'd be investing in the wrong area. So I did a management degree instead.

Its a real shame as there are very few librarianship courses now. Aberystwyth is one of the few universities that have stuck at it.

Libraries will sooner or later run out of librarians at this rate.

PasturesNew

Pyxis wrote: »

Except that I told him it was my house, my mortgage and my money buying the windows!

Ah, well they're not really interested in information gatherers because the sales person isn't paid for their time...

That's just the way the industry was built.

PasturesNew

vivatifosi wrote: »

.... run out of librarians ....

What does a librarian actually do?

My only experience is: you walk into a library and there is a person, or two, not seeming to do much at the desk ... if there are books to put away they'll do that. If somebody asks for a book they'll take them to where it is.

So ...what else do librarians do that can't be done by somebody else?

I mean, I'd have thought "I can do that, gizza job". Somebody asks for a book, I'd know if it were in the library and where to find it .... if somebody wants to take a book or return it there'd be procedures...I could put the book back where it came from.

What else is there to do? Bit of dusting?