Staff Profile - August 2014

Beverly Brown currently serves JPL as Pablo Creek’s Clerical Supervisor under PCR”s Manager, Sandra Ostroski.  She has been with JPL for 33 years—first as a Clerk 1, and 2, then as a Library Assistant and now in her present role at PCR.   She first worked at WBK where she remembers JPL used the Gaylord system--punch cards were used to put the due date on individual cards that were then placed in a sleeve in the back of each book at the check-out desk. Later, Beverly moved to Main Circ, AR, then back to Main in SST, JB, and finally PCR.  So Beverly Brown has a long history and knowledge of how JPL works. 

May 2, 2014, Beverly presented her new manual “Customer Service Using jaxpubliclibrary.org” to the Administrative Team.  Her presentation was well received, and we thought it would be of interest to you to know a little about how Beverly progressed from the concept for the new manual to the actual product.

Q: You tackled “Get to Yes” training for Clerical Supervisors and Clerical Staffs, and by your own observations realized better guidelines were needed.  How did you get the ball rolling to produce the new customer service manual?
A:  As a part of my performance evaluation I’m required to conduct training for the clerical staff in my region --JB, PCR, AR, and UPK.  As I worked with the circulation staffs at branches in the region, I realized they were referring customers to the reference section for information that they themselves could answer, if they were knowledgeable of the library homepage.  I thought if we don’t know what products or services we offer, how can we share it with our customers.  A more comprehensive, up-to-date customer service manual would be a tremendous help and keep JPL service consistent system wide. 

Q: You discussed your suggestions with your supervisors and other staffs, and once you received input from them, what was your next step? 
A:  I contacted Karen Walker with JPL E-Services and shared my desire to do some training for the clerical staffs using JPL’s website.  Karen agreed that it was an excellent idea, and would be a good tool for “Get to Yes”.  The task was very easy because Karen had PowerPoint slides for the website already.  We worked together to provide script for each PowerPoint slide.  I have to say “thank you” again to Karen because she was a big help because I had never used PowerPoint.

Q:  And then how did you go about putting the customer service manual together?
A:  After Karen provided the PowerPoint slides for the website,  we went through each slide and added wording and instructions for most of the slides. Wording the instructions had to be detailed enough to be understood clearly and be as succinct as possible.

Q: What has been the result of your hard work—are staffs giving customers better service now?
A:  When I presented “Customer Service Using jaxpublibrary.org” to the Administration Team, May 2, I received positive feedback, and subsequently, from staffs. The training has helped clerical staffs better understand how to assist customers with basic knowledge of navigating through JPL’s website, searching the catalog, placing holds, accessing library accounts, e-services, etc.  Another positive benefit from this training is, staffs are actually doing “front-line marketing” of the services we offer.  Additionally, It was suggested by clerical staffs that this training would be good for clerical new hires, which we will do.

Q: What is your favorite pastime?
A: I enjoy spending time with my family; my families all have busy schedules, so when we have the opportunity we try to do activities together.  Our most recent activity was attending the Beaches Jazz series in June and July, we convinced our mom, who is 75, to go to the Jazz series with us, and she enjoyed herself. We all had a great time.