05 Our customers

5.1 Who they are
5.2 Community input
5.2.1 Community profiles
5.2.2 Surveys & focus groups
5.2.3 Customer use
5.2.4 Customer suggestions
5.2.5 Customer enquiries
5.2.6 Customer complaints and comments

5.1 Who they are

The collections of public libraries must serve a wide variety of customers.  In Auckland this means potentially all ratepayers and residents and their families, irrespective of race, gender, income, political or religious belief.  In addition ACL/TPK attracts subscription membership and use from non-residents, particularly in the Auckland region.

Library services and programmes are available to individual customers of all ages who come to the library in person or via telephone, mail, electronic communications or the website. These customers include not only the general public but also students and researchers from around the world.  Specialized collections attract business people, professionals such as architects, writers, musicians and those individuals who use libraries for self-education and advancement.  Visiting scholars set up their research trips to use the libraries’ retrospective primary research materials to further their projects.  Because Auckland is a city with a wide range of public and private educational institutions, ACL/TPK collections are also used by students to support their learning.

ACL/TPK attempts to be responsive to the needs of local communities, offering comprehensive collections reflecting the wide range of community interests and needs.  For this reason the collections of individual libraries may differ depending on the make-up and needs of local communities.

Key user groups for ACL/TPK are:

1. Pre-school children and their parents or carers.
2. Students (primary, secondary, undergraduate tertiary) and their parents or carers (where appropriate).
3. Children and young adults as recreational users.
4. Adult recreational users.
5. Lifelong learners, including general researchers.
6. Specialist researchers, including research professionals, genealogists, companies and agencies.
7. Older adults

Some customers require a special focus of services or collections to meet their needs.

1. Maori: ACL/TPK have a responsibility to care for the unique taonga held in the collections, and also to meet the needs of Maori under obligations to the Treaty of Waitangi.
2. Pasifika people:  The Auckland region has the largest concentration of Pasifika people in the world, making up 13% of Auckland city’s population.
3. Housebound people and people in residential homes: ACL/TPK have established special services to provide library materials to those unable to come into the library.
4. Partially sighted: ACL/TPK maintain a collection of large print material as well as audio books.
5. Hearing disabled: ACL/TPK maintains a collection of subtitled videos and DVDs.
6. Adult literacy students: ACL/TPK purchases graded books for adult literacy and English as a second language for students and teachers: Literacy needs and life long learning needs are also provided for through learning centres at some community libraries (Akozones).
7. Business community: ACL/TPK provide business, commercial and industrial information to companies.  This is supported by a strong collection in the relevant fields, and a fee based Business Information Service.
8. Auckland City Council councillors and officers: ACL/TPK operates the Local Government Information Service (LOGIS).
9. New immigrants and other language speakers: ACL/TPK have a collection of World Languages as well as language courses for learning English as a second language.
10. Residents of the Hauraki Gulf: These residents have unique access problems. ACL/TPK have a full community library on Waiheke Island and a community collection on Great Barrier Island.

Non-users
Research carried out in 2003 has also shown that some groups of people are more likely to be non-users of ACL/TPK when compared to the population make up of Auckland City.  These groups include males, people aged 20-29 years, people of New Zealand Maori descent, Pacifika peoples, people working full-time, people on benefits, and people with no academic qualifications or School Cert/NCEA1 as their highest qualification.

The most frequently made suggestion by non-users for encouraging them to use libraries is to advertise and promote libraries more. ACL/TPK is committed to identifying and addressing their unique collection needs, and designing promotions to reach these groups, as well as improving service in areas such as the speed of delivery of new books.

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5.2 Community input

ACL/TPK acknowledges the importance of community input in the building of the library collections and uses the following range of consultation mechanisms:

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5.2.1 Community profiles

ACL/TPK has developed community profiles for each community library area and for the Central City Library area.  These build on census data, research carried out by external organisations on behalf of Auckland city, and information about the community from community groups and Community Planning.^viii

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5.2.2 Surveys & focus groups

External customer research commissioned by ACL/TPK, and regular customer satisfaction surveys feed into updates to the community profiles, and to the 3-year Collection Development Plan.

The Customers’ Voice – Te Reo o te Hunga Whai Ratonga, ^ix an important survey that was carried out in 1994 and 2001, identified the specific needs of Maori customers in Auckland city. The survey highlighted some key areas of improvement and development.  This helps the library to make informed decisions about Maori material, physical environment and face to face customer service.

In 2003 Gravitas carried out extensive customer research (users and non-users) in the form of telephone surveys, intercept surveys and focus groups, including specific questions around collections.^x

Community Survey

Intercept Survey

Focus Groups

Staff workshops

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5.2.3 Customer use

The computerised library management system provides data on the use of the collections.  These include reports of annual issues for each collection and reports of over use and under use of specific collections.  These show community use or under use of specific parts of the collection.

A significant body of work was completed by the Collection Management Review Team in 2003 to ensure that the collection development policy was current, in line with acceptable international and local standards and tailored to meet customer needs both now and in the future internal research.

This work focused on updating collection data from the Collection Analysis Project in 2001^xii.  The collection data was produced from the Dynix Library Management System ^xiii and analysed by an external library and management consultant.^xiv

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5.2.4 Customer suggestions

Suggestions made by customers for materials not held in the collection are considered for purchase and inform the selection process.

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5.2.5 Customer enquiries

Records of in-depth reference enquiries made at the Central City Library subject desks are kept and these are useful for monitoring the sorts of subjects on which information is wanted and whether or not it was available.  Lists are also kept of subjects for which no information could be found and attempts made to buy in those areas.

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5.2.6 Customer complaints and comments

Customer “Have your say” forms are available from any service desk.  Complaints, queries or comments related to the ACL/TPK collections can be recorded here and will be responded to promptly.  If they prefer, customers can also write to the Collections Manager, or use an on-line form on the website to make a suggestion or comment.

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