Since I live out in the hinterlands, new technology and corporate strategies only trickle this way ever so slowly. What is considered new and/or innovative in South Bend today is old hat for people who live in Seattle, Portland, Chicago or NYC. (Heck, I know a lot of people in this area who don't do the internet or even email at all!)
A few months ago I noticed a new gimmick at the local library. They now have a machine set-up in which patrons can checkout their own books without the aid of a librarian or library worker. It is advertised as being "faster," though this makes no sense here since lines are rarely more than one person deep.
One of the ladies who works at our library wanted to show me how it worked, so I could utilize this "new service" in the future. I politely told her that I wasn't interested. Why not, she asked. Because if all patrons start using the machine, I said, you and/or one of your coworkers will receive a pink slip!
In time, to save on dreaded labor costs, the library board may decide to staff our smallish library with one worker to shelve books and make change for the copy machine. The rest of the library experience will be handled by machines and computers. A very person-based enterprise will become strictly impersonal.
In a piece on Eat the State!, a Dr. Menlo makes much the same point and more in relation to automatic checkout at the grocery store.
Back to the library, I often get good recommendations for books to read from jawing with librarians while they checkout my reading material. I also learn of news and happenings in our local community. And there is something else that even a basically anti-social person like me receives from dealing with library personnel -- human interaction.
If we continue at breakneck speed to automate life in all aspects of the public sphere, we lose the connection with our fellow citizens. We will become isolated crash test dummies who no longer know how to think, communicate or care for anyone or anything outside of the bubble of ourselves.
We will become nothing more than obedient workers and consumers who no longer lead vibrant lives, but merely exist to feed the corporate monster.
Is that what we REALLY want?
A few months ago I noticed a new gimmick at the local library. They now have a machine set-up in which patrons can checkout their own books without the aid of a librarian or library worker. It is advertised as being "faster," though this makes no sense here since lines are rarely more than one person deep.
One of the ladies who works at our library wanted to show me how it worked, so I could utilize this "new service" in the future. I politely told her that I wasn't interested. Why not, she asked. Because if all patrons start using the machine, I said, you and/or one of your coworkers will receive a pink slip!
In time, to save on dreaded labor costs, the library board may decide to staff our smallish library with one worker to shelve books and make change for the copy machine. The rest of the library experience will be handled by machines and computers. A very person-based enterprise will become strictly impersonal.
In a piece on Eat the State!, a Dr. Menlo makes much the same point and more in relation to automatic checkout at the grocery store.
So, I stopped going to all Kroger-owned stores like Fred Myers and QFC. I will get my food from my local Seattle co-op, Madison Market, or a farmer’s market, or a Trader Joe’s or a Costco, no matter how much farther I have to go.Dr. Menlo has nailed it. This auto everything world is an insidious form of corporate social conditioning aimed at gaining our acceptance to the notion that more unemployed people and greater corporate profits are good ideas.
Let me tell you why: Kroger hates people.
They hate people so much that they are quietly socially conditioning the populace and union-busting at the same time. I am talking, of course, about auto-checkout machines.
Listen, do you get extra money for checking out your own purchases? No, you do not. By opting in to do this task yourself, you are letting Kroger use less actual manpower, and they get to pocket the difference. You are doing their work for them. They are punking you like a real sucker.
Back to the library, I often get good recommendations for books to read from jawing with librarians while they checkout my reading material. I also learn of news and happenings in our local community. And there is something else that even a basically anti-social person like me receives from dealing with library personnel -- human interaction.
If we continue at breakneck speed to automate life in all aspects of the public sphere, we lose the connection with our fellow citizens. We will become isolated crash test dummies who no longer know how to think, communicate or care for anyone or anything outside of the bubble of ourselves.
We will become nothing more than obedient workers and consumers who no longer lead vibrant lives, but merely exist to feed the corporate monster.
Is that what we REALLY want?
My library implemented those self checkout machines a few years ago.
ReplyDeleteBefore this happened they used to have very long lines to check out material. During their busiest times the line stretched from one end of the room to the other!
I was happy to see the machines show up because it mean a much shorter wait. It's rare for me to be ready to check out books and have to wait these days.
I definitely understand where you're coming from, though! Between the recession and new technology I wouldn't be surprised if my branch starts laying people off soon. :(
I've been thinking about this for a while...professional librarians are not clerks, and most are required to have an MLS at the minimum. The "jawing" with your librarian is the important thing, and local library budgets are usually justified by the circulation statistics. I am pleased that you use your local library. Check out LOTS of books. However, the professionalism of a librarian has little to do with the checkout process. In a big library those are tasks that would be farmed out to students or volunteers. Rather than worrying about them being out of a job because of the automated system, you should continue to interact with the librarian...the automation gives them more time to do the real services a librarian is there for: reference, collection development, and community outreach.
ReplyDeleteAnd really, Amazon and Netflix have become highly automated librarians...
ReplyDeleteI'm opposed to automating everything, but see some automation as positive.
ReplyDeleteAs soon as computers entered the picture, automation has become an inescapable fact of life. Any job that can be replaced by a computer, most likely will be. Depending on the specific circumstances, automation can either improve things or make them worse. Faster is not always better. Just as slower is not always better. But sometimes faster IS better, and other times slower IS better. It really has to be determined on a case by case basis.
I think it would be foolish to indiscriminately automate anything that can be, but it would be just as foolish to object to all automation.
Personally I prefer using self-check out. I go to the library at least twice a month, sometimes much more frequently, and unless the machine is out of order, I use self-check out every time. It's much faster. I'm also not big on small talk, so it's nice in that sense too, to be able to just pick up my books quickly and quietly and as privately possible.
ReplyDeleteI do not think of my trips to the library as being a social outing, but as being purely business. I come with a clear objective, know exactly what I want, often have most of my books waiting for me on the reserve shelf, which I can get myself, and find the self-check out (located right next to the reserve materials shelf) to be much more convenient.
I actually would think that the self-check out would generally appeal more to introverted people. Whereas more people oriented extroverts, would probably thrive on the human interaction of having your books checked out with a clerk. So it's kind of surprising that the reverse seems to be true with you, a self-described anti-social person, choosing the more social option. Nothing wrong with that either, but just a bit odd.
If I have a question I would hope there would be someone there to help me. That's what a librarian is for. Otherwise checking out books is pretty much a no-brainer. Since in most branches, the entire check out process is computerized anyway, the human check out clerk is basically just doing the automated check out for you, acting like a go between.
Though that being said I don't think they'll ever completely replace a human check out clerk, because the machines do sometimes break down. Also I go to the library a lot, and lot of the people I see shying away from self-check out tend to be more technologically handicapped, need to have someone else do it for them, because they don't feel comfortable doing it themselves.
I don't see self-check out as a replacement of labor, but an enhancement of it. It's nice to have both options.
I've been going to the same library branch for years, and there's still the same amount of clerks there's always been, with the added bonus of two optional automated check out stations.
If they start automating the librarians, replacing them with computers, that I would worry about, but checking out books, not so much.
I'd just like to add that while I regularly use and support self-check out counters at the public library, I've never used one in a store. If I ever were to do so, to me that would only make sense for small purchases, like if you're going in for one or two items and you don't want to wait in a long line, kind of like buying something out of a vending machine (which is a good example of what was likely the first self check-out service invented), but if you had a whole shopping cart worth of groceries, I agree that it would be strange to use the self-check out, doing all the work yourself without much of a savings in money or time. And what happens when the self-check out counters start forming long lines? Kind of defeats the whole time savings concept.
ReplyDeleteStill I like the idea of having both options. Self-check out more ideally suited for non-profits (like the library) or in a store for small purchases only, similar to shopping from a vending machine. Which are really big in Japan I hear. You can even buy beer in vending machines there, which I think is kind of cool, but probably wouldn't work in American society.