Joe J. Marquez was an academic librarian for 10 years at Reed College and Sonoma State University. His most recent work was at Nike working with a design team in support of employee experience. He has presented and written on topics related to service design, UX tools, and library space assessment. While not currently a librarian, he remains active in the library community through teaching and outreach and never hesitates to evangelize about service design when asked. He is the co-author of the books Library Service Design: A LITA Guide to Holistic Assessment, Insight, and Improvement (2016) and Getting Started in Service Design (2017). He was awarded the first Future of Librarian Fellowship in 2017 from the ALA Center for the Future of Libraries and was named a 2018 Mover and Shaker by Library Journal. He has an MLIS from the University of Washington iSchool and an MBA from Portland State University.

Getting Started with Library Service Design eCourse
You must complete your registration in advance of the eCourse by following the instructions contained in the PDF download that accompanies your purchase. The download can be found on the final confirmation screen after you complete your purchase and may also be accessed from your account. Select "My Account" and then select the "Files" tab to see all of your digital downloads.
To: May 2, 2021
- Description
- Learning Outcomes
- Registration
- eCourse Outline
- About the Instructors
- Contact Us
Service design is a holistic, co-creative methodology that puts the user at the center of the service delivery model to create user-centered services. This eCourse will explore the service design methodology as a valuable toolkit that librarians and administrators can use to assess, revise, and create library services, spaces, and workflows.
Within this 4-week eCourse, you will read articles, respond to prompts in a general discussion board, and complete exercises to help familiarize yourself and get comfortable using service design tools. By the end of the course, you’ll create a draft service design plan for a service or touchpoint in your own library. The course will also rely on a workbook created by the instructors that highlight the phases and tools of service design, as well as the list of library service design heuristics.
After participating in this eCourse, you will:
- Understand the basics of the service design methodology and tools in order to determine if it is a good match for your library’s assessment program.
- Learn how to create an effective service design plan in order to begin developing a similar plan for your library.
- Learn best practices for employing a service design project in order to implement an effective project of your own and avoid common pitfalls.
- Understand the importance of making assessment part of the fabric of the library. When this is done, then we can get one step closer to being aware of necessary changes to the library environment.
Upon purchase you will receive a registration PDF in the form of a digital download. This PDF contains a link to our Registration page and a password. You must download this PDF and follow the instructions in order to complete the registration. The download link can be found on the final confirmation screen after you complete your purchase, and may also be accessed by selecting "My Account" at the top of your screen and then selecting the "Files" tab. Confirmation with login instructions, reminders, and alerts will go to the email address used in the registration.
How this eCourse Works
The eCourse begins on April 5, 2021. Your participation will require approximately six hours a week, at times that fit your schedule. All activities take place on the website, and you will be expected to:
- Read, listen to or view online content
- Post to online discussion boards
- Complete weekly assignments or activities
Instructors Joe Marquez and Annie Downey will monitor discussion boards regularly during the 4-week period, lead group discussions, and will also answer individual questions. All interaction will take place on the eCourse site, which will be available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It's recommended that students log into the site on the first day of class or within a few days for an overview of the content and to begin the first lesson.
User Requirements
Participants will need regular access to a computer with an internet connection for online message boards participation, viewing online video, listening to streaming audio (mp3 files), and downloading and viewing PDFs and PowerPoint files. ALA Publishing eLearning Solutions eCourses are fully compatible with Windows and MacOs.
Bullk Orders
This eCourse is licensed for a single user. For pricing on bulk purchases in excess of $1,000, please contact us for more information.
The first half of each week will be about reading and familiarizing yourself with the content, while the second half of each week will be centered around group discussion and activity completion. The instructors will also open up a weekly forum for general questions.
Week 1 - What is Service Design?
In this week, you will be introduced to the theory behind service design, what it is used for, and how it can benefit their library. This week is a foundational week with article readings and Moodle books. The purpose of the readings is to help you stay up to date and understand the concepts involved in Service Design.
Activities:
- Introductions
- Service Safari
Week 2 - Phases, Tools, and Heuristics of Service Design
This week describes the 4 necessary phases for any service design project along with key tools (exercises) used in service design. While not an exhaustive list of tools, the tools highlighted will get any research team thinking in service design terms and quickly getting them toward a “thick description” of their users and user behavior. You will also be introduced to the service design heuristics.
Activities:
- Tool Matchup
- Journaling
Week 3 - Service Design in Action
In this week, you will read about the service design efforts at Reed College. This case study will review how Reed College Library User Experience group (LUX) has implemented service design in their own research about how students use services. This week’s content is about demonstrating and reinforcing how the tools are used in an actual service design project.
Activities:
- Customer Journey Map
- Submit Idea for Final Project
Week 4 - Best Practices, Going Forward, and Managing Change
In the final week, we will wrap up what we learned and share some useful learnings from our own experiences with service design. We will also discuss what our next steps are as well as where we might want to take the methodology next. This week’s readings focus on lessons learned from using service design. We also highlight next possible steps with service design for the librarian profession and look at the importance of managing change. This last section will help you make the case for using service design and looking at how to adapt your library to current user needs and expectations.
Activity:
- Create Draft Service Design Plan
If you have any questions about this eCourse, please contact us at elsmarketing@ala.org.
At Your Service
Accommodations are offered based on user needs. For transcription, live captioning, or other accessibility requests, please contact us at elsmarketing@ala.org.