Are libraries competing with bookstores? Short answer: Yes
Earlier this year, the Napa County Library rolled out a new website, a new catalog and most exciting of all, a new partnership with the St. Helena Public Library. With a single library card, patrons can now use both systems seamlessly. It’s a change that’s been a long time coming, and we’re thrilled about the improved functionality and the easier, smarter search experience that brings all our resources together in an easy-to-use platform, that’s natively mobile friendly, allows for patron reviews and recommendations, and helps support our patrons and staff in a much more user-forward approach.
One of the biggest upgrades is our new search capability, which gathers all formats of a title in one place. In the past, if you searched for a book like God of the Woods, you’d get separate entries for the print book, audiobook, e‑book and anything else. Sometimes, depending on keywords or popularity, those entries would get separated entirely, meaning patrons would occasionally conclude (incorrectly) that we didn’t have something. Every librarian knows the “I can’t believe you don’t have…” emails only to quickly find that it was on our shelves, but simply not found because the title they searched for wasn’t quite right or the formats all came back as different results and they didn’t scroll down far enough. The new catalog makes it much simpler to see everything we own, all together.
It also helps people discover related items. We can now link titles to upcoming programs or to items in our Library of Things collection. Twenty years ago, when I searched for a Simpsons book and got the Homer Simpson Weber grill as a result, I laughed. Who would want to look for a backyard BBQ in the same catalog they used for books? As it turns out, I couldn’t have been more wrong. That kind of blended discovery is exactly where library service has been heading, and where user expectations already exist.
Libraries have traditionally embraced the old “fast, good, cheap—pick two” adage. This is sometimes called the “iron triangle” and speaks to the fact that it’s hard to do it all. We have always excelled at good and, of course, cheap; but fast, not so much. Bestsellers were often on bookstore shelves long before they reached us, and we might have had only a handful of copies, even with dozens of holds. While this started changing years ago, and we pride ourselves on having “street date” titles on our shelves at the same time as a bookstore might be stocking theirs, we’re constantly looking for new ways to improve patron satisfaction, including how people find materials in the first place.
We love the deep research questions, the detective‑work moments, and the joy of handing someone the perfect book they didn’t know how to find – or didn’t even know existed. But many patrons already know exactly what they want, and they want to get to it quickly. To support that, we’ve made changes over time. As I mentioned in an earlier article, we still use Dewey, but we also create special pull‑out collections that gather materials by theme – Home & Garden, for example – in a way that feels a little more like browsing in a bookstore.
We pay close attention to user behavior as well. When a title is routinely misspelled or commonly called something else, we add “alternative titles” to make sure it still appears in searches.
And, of course, our holdings themselves continue to evolve with the world around us. If you’ve read even a few past issues of the Yountville Sun (welcome back!), you’ve probably seen me talk about our Library of Things collection. Twenty‑five years ago, the idea of a Simpsons book and a Homer grill showing up in the same search might have seemed absurd. Now it feels perfectly natural. Project Hail Mary—the book, audiobook, DVD and Playaway—are all on our shelves. And sitting beside them is a Stargazing Kit, complete with flashlight, sky guide, moon guide, compass and a telescope. Just in case you’re also commandeered for an interplanetary expedition to save the planet.
Yountville
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Call the library at (707) 944-1888
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