You can check out books, browse through our newspapers and magazines, attend a meeting, check your e-mail, access the Internet, meet your friends and use our reference services at any of the eight branches of the Springfield-Greene County Library District.

But there’s one more thing we’d like you to do while you are at the library. “Please, please, please, give us your opinion,” says Carol Grimes, the library’s planning and development coordinator.

“Libraries are service organizations and we are determined to be the best in the business, and, to do that, we have subscribed to Counting Opinions, a customer service survey designed especially for libraries. It is a continuous customer feedback system that enables the library to measure customer satisfaction over time.”

In “What Management Is,” Joan Magretta writes that organizations whose mission it is to create value for their customers understand that “value is not defined by what an organization does, but by the customers who use its goods and services.”

“This is a perfect summation of why we are using Counting Opinions to seek input from library customers,” said Grimes. “It is very important that the Board of Trustees and staff hear from the community on a regular basis because we have serious choices to make during every planning cycle.”

Counting Opinions is accessible in several different ways:

• You can complete the survey online from the library’s web site at thelibrary.org. Click on the Counting Opinions logo at the bottom of the page from your home or a library computer.
• Pick up and complete paper surveys at any library branch or the bookmobile. You’ll find Spanish versions there, too.
• Or, access and fill out the survey at special computer kiosks dedicated to that task alone at the Library Center, Library Station and the Brentwood Branch Library.

There are long and short versions online of the survey. “It will take about seven minutes to finish the short form, but it will be time well spent,” said Grimes. “We’d prefer that everyone complete the longer version, but we understand that time is precious.”

Patron input is taken seriously by staff, who believe that the best way to make sure we have quality libraries is to continuously reinvent and revitalize them based upon a clear understanding of community needs. So, please take our survey.

Jeanne C. Duffey, community relations director for the Springfield-Greene County Library District, can be reached at jeanned@thelibrary.org.