EPISODE 38 (February 2025) Stop Calling Them Customers!!

Beth Patin, Dave Lankes & Mike Eisenberg

Description

Library & information science for decades has focused on the “user” perspective in systems and services. This includes HCI (human-computer interaction), interfaces, features in search and catalog systems, and ways of improving services (e.g., online/chat reference, maker spaces, events). We provide systems, resources, and services and users use them. Furthermore, “users (or customers) know best,” so we should develop and improve systems primarily through user feedback.

But maybe it’s time to move on from piecemeal innovations or improvements for customers, and consider people as whole persons and their places in “community.”  A customer orientation implies short-term interactions while people in communities are there for the long haul. In this episode, the Libraries Lead team considers this alternative approach and discusses what this might look like for all types of libraries as well as the major information and social media systems used extensively today.

This episode includes:

• Wazzup?
• AI Watch & BONUS VIDEO – [ Episode 38 bonus video DEEPSEEK ]
• Main Topic: Stop Calling Them Customers!!
• Awesome Library Thingy

References & Resources

AI Watch:

Cheung, Brian. Why AI could replace NFL first-down markers sooner than you might think. NBC News. January 30, 2025. https://www.nbcnews.com/sports/nfl/ai-replace-nfl-first-markers-sooner-might-think-rcna188186

Thomas, K. (2024, December 10). You can’t hear it, but University of Tennessee tool ‘cloaks’ songs to protect music from AI. Knoxville News Sentinel. https://www.knoxnews.com/story/news/education/2024/12/10/harmonycloak-university-of-tennessee-stops-ai-from-using-copyrighted-music/76338974007/

DeepSeek. (2025). https://www.deepseek.com/

Plummer, D. (2025, January 29). Deepseek R1 Explained by a Retired Microsoft Engineer | Deep Seek Explainer [Video]. Dave’s Garage. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3TpcHebtxM 

Schachne, A. (2025, February 1). Run DeepSeek R1 Privately on Your Computer | Installing if you want [Video]. Skill Leap AI. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kFV20LatL8&list=WL&index=30&t=696s  

Main Topic: Stop Calling Them Customers!!

Joan Frye Williams (2025) https://jfwilliams.com/ retrieved Jan 31, 2025

Nick Belkin (2025) https://comminfo.rutgers.edu/belkin-nicholas retrieved Jan 31, 2025

Block, Peter. Community: the Structure of Belonging. Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2018.  https://www.peterblock.com/books/community-the-structure-of-belonging-2nd-edition/

Thornton, Thomas F. Being and Place Among the Tlingit. University of Washington Press, 2008. https://shopsealaskaheritage.com/products/book-being-and-place-among-the-tlingit 

Lowe, Toby. What is ‘community’ and why is it important?. Medium-Center for Public Impact, February 24, 2021. https://medium.com/centre-for-public-impact/what-is-community-2e895219a205

Arora, Kumar. The Customer is Not Always Right: Here are five reasons why. Forbes, April 14, 2022. https://www.forbes.com/councils/theyec/2019/05/23/the-customer-is-not-always-right-here-are-five-reasons-why/

Awesome Library Thingy

American Library Association. ALA to U.S. Department of Education: Book bans are real. January, 26, 2025. https://www.ala.org/news/2025/01/book-bans-are-real

Snyder, K. A. (2025, January 24). The Librarians [Film]. United States: ITVS, Ideal Partners, World of HA Productions, Artemis Rising Foundation, Pretty Matches Productions.

Tolin, L. (2025, January 31). ‘The Librarians’ Film Shows the Toll of Book Bans. PEN America. https://pen.org/the-librarians-film-shows-the-toll-of-book-bans/

Horton, A. (2025, January 27). ‘Civil rights fight of our time’: new film explores the battle over US libraries. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/jan/27/new-film-explores-book-bans-us-libraries

Hartel, J. (2024, December). Surfacing the ‘Silent Foundation’… | What Makes This Paper Great? (#12) [Video]. INFIDEOS (Information Science Videos) YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfcMHv3rI7Y

VanScoy, A., Hands, A. S., Švab, K., & Merčun, T. (2024). Surfacing the ‘silent foundation’: Which information behaviour theories are relevant to public library reference service? Information Research Special Issue: Proceedings of the 15th ISIC – The Information Behaviour Conference, Aalborg, Denmark, August 26–29, 2024. https://doi.org/10.47989/ir292849

Huvila, I., & Gorichanaz, T. (2025). Trends in information behavior research, 2016–2022: Annual Review of Information Science and Technology (ARIST) paper. Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 76(1), 216–237. https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.24943

Hartel, J. (2024, December). The silent foundation coloring book. Retrieved from https://drive.google.com/file/d/18djM0LqllrCT5VP1cO9mhp4H78QeF2XY/view

Filed under: Dr. Beth Patin, Dr. Dave Lankes, Dr. Mike Eisenberg, Season 5