My name is Rachel and I am a Librarian with CPL’s Programming and Community Connections Department. In addition to planning and coordinating in-person and online events, I am also a member of the Library’s team that created and launched our Customer Satisfaction Survey. However, satisfaction is only one iota of what we are trying to identify and measure with this survey!

The Customer Satisfaction Survey is one part – a small first step – in a larger project to measure the Library’s progress in meeting a set of outcomes that we want to make for our organization and our community. We set some lofty goals. Specifically, the Library wants to:

1. Increase satisfaction with Coquitlam Public Library overall
2. Increase satisfaction around meeting community needs
3. Improve connections between people, resources and ideas
4. Increase awareness of library services, programs and partnerships
5. Demonstrate the impact of Library services and programs out in the community

We knew there were a few challenges to knowing if we were successful in accomplishing these goals! Specifically, we knew:

• We couldn’t answer these questions ourselves! We need our customers to provide us with feedback about their satisfaction and awareness of Library collections, programs, and services
• We would need to ask a lot of the right questions in order to measure complex ideas such as overall library satisfaction
• We needed to measure these achievements over time! In order to see if we can achieve an increased level of satisfaction, we needed to establish a baseline or benchmark and then conduct a second measure once we reviewed and responded to customer feedback

We spent many months creating the survey. From the responses, we will learn what we are doing well, how we can improve, and what we can never change (for fear of the wrath of our customers).

Please take approximately 5 – 7 minutes to share your feedback and your voice by completing the survey. Your responses mean we can improve, better meet community needs, and continue to make an impact out in our community. 

If you have any questions about this project or you are interested in learning more, please contact me at rburke@coqlibrary.ca. Always happy to chat surveys and evaluation!

Hi everyone! I’m Chris Miller, the librarian who organizes most of the programs for kids and teens at Coquitlam Public Library. In this post, I would like to introduce you to one of our signature programs: Reading Buddies.

Reading Buddies is a paired reading program, which means it involves two people reading together, in this case a teenager and a child. Teens are in high school; kids are usually in gr. 1, 2, 3 or 4.

Before COVID-19, meetings were in-person at our library branches. When the teens and kids arrived, we matched them together, then let them browse our collections for something to read.

When the virus hit, everything changed. We knew we could no longer run in-person meetings because there was no way to physically distance participants. Meetings wouldn’t have been safe. However, we soon realized that the videoconference platform Zoom would allow us to replicate many features from the in-person program, but in a safe, virtual environment.

We ran some test meetings in early June, then expanded the program. Participants received Zoom meeting invitations. At the meetings, I assigned pairs to private spaces called Breakout Rooms. Inside each of these virtual “rooms,” a teen and child could choose books and read together. Sometimes kids chose paper books to read – favourites from their bookshelves at home – but most of the time, they found electronic books, which are available for free through the library. I went back and forth between the rooms to make sure they’d found things to read, and that the technology was working.

Aside from Breakout Rooms, the key feature was a Zoom command called Share Screen. Using Share Screen, buddies can view the same page in an electronic book so that teens can follow along as the kids read, or vice versa.

There are challenges from time to time, but generally speaking, the transition has been smooth.

It has been wonderful to see our keen participants again – kids and teens – even if it is just through on-screen video. Believe me, I look forward to running the program inside our libraries again at some point in the future. However, for the time being, we’ve found a way to make the program work in a virtual format, and I couldn’t be happier!

Meetings for our newest session are every Tuesday and Wednesday starting on Aug. 11 and 12. Note that we’re happy to accept new registrants even after the program begins. Application forms are available through our web site.

Hi, my name is Ann Johannes and I’m the Community Development Liaison. My role is to find out what the community needs from the Library and figure out a way to make it happen! COVID-19 has really affected the way that we work but we’ve been trying our best to come up with programs and events that you might find interesting. We’ve also sent out a number of surveys and you responded saying that you would like to see virtual book clubs and staff book recommendations – so we’ve done both!

Every Thursday at 11:30 am, we do a live Facebook event where different staff members talk about book recommendations. Even if you can’t tune into it live, they are always on our Facebook page so you are welcome to view them whenever it works for you!

We cover a variety of genres and we’re always open to questions from the community! Our lovely colleague Melani has created book lists for all the books we’ve recommended. You just need to search for “Coquitlam Public Library Book Recommendations” under book lists in our catalogue.

We’ve also established 2 virtual book clubs and are always looking for new members to join in the lively discussions we have! Our Virtual Book Club meets every two weeks on Tuesday evenings at 7:00 pm.  We pick books from Hoopla Digital so that many people can check out the eBook at the same time.  You can find more info on our Facebook Virtual Book Club group page.

Our virtual English as an Additional Language Book Club meets monthly on Tuesday afternoons at 1:00 pm. You can find out more info on our ESL Programs page.