"Customer Service"

Serving the patron comes in all kinds of ways. today it meant swapping money!

We had a patron that is on leave from her marine post in Europe. She comes to Rogers every summer to visit family. She wanted to get on a computer but with out a library card she could only get on our guest machine. It gives the user 15-20 minutes at a time and often isn't enough. We more than once have extended the time for folks, especially when there is no one waiting. Well after the third or fourth time, today, one of the librarians suggested that maybe she would like to get a temporary card. The catch was that it would cost her $5.00.

For a moment it looked like all was lost. All she had was foreign money, -euros! Luckily - we just happen (!) to have on staff a man who is a coin collector including paper money. He more than happily "bought" her 5 euro bill for $5, American. Of course he got a deal on the exchange. But she got access to the internet more than 15 minutes a day. Now she can chat it up all she wants with her friends back in Germany!!

Now isn't that service!