Introducing Information Literacy 2.0

In the age of Google, academic library services are changing out of necessity. Students and faculty have many more sources of information beyond the library's offerings and reference desk statistics are plummeting. To remain relevant, academic library services must adapt and librarians must apply their skills in new ways. In this column, the author will explore current issues in academic library services.     

Supporting User Needs and Skills to Minimize Library Anxiety:

Academic reference and instruction librarians are commited to providing excellent and appropriate service to their library users. However, the increasing diversity of users in today's academic libraries, coupled with the overwhelming amount of information available in a variety of formats, often form barriers which prevent users from feeling sufficiently comfortable in approaching the reference desk to ask for assistance. Guidelines are suggested for use by academic librarians in evaluating facilities, services and staff in their libraries to assess their effectiveness in welcoming users and validating their information needs.     

Thriving in Changing Times:

The sheer power and scope of Internet information services are o~eninet:h e oublic's eve to the volume of information available in akay &at tr&ional 6brary service points have never quite managed Are librarians missing the point in how information options are presented to the public? Do we need to shift ow emphasis on the importance of specific skills and abilities required by front line librarians? Or, do we need to emphatically emphasize service as a primary mission in library services? In addition to basic core competencies, today's reference librarian must be committed to providing superior public service to library clientele and that commitment must be immediately apparent to each user.     

Delivering and Assessing Music Reference Services

The nature of music collections and their use means that patrons have always required specialized guidance from librarians to access what they need. Currently, library patrons' expectations are growing as collections and their delivery modes evolve. Music reference services must adapt to effectively address these needs. This article examines the challenges to delivering effective music reference service, the basics of reference assessment, and how assessment models such LibQual+, the Wisconsin-Ohio Reference Evaluation Program, and the Reference Effort Assessment Data Scale can help librarians build patron-centered music reference services.     

The Future of Libraries and Interlibrary Services

Abstract

In order to provide optimum service in a world increasingly awash with information and technological change all set against a backdrop of escalating costs and static or declining budgets, librarians must make a choice. Based on a careful analysis of the information preferences and needs of their clientele, librarians will be driven by economics and demand to decide whether their particular library will become primarily an archive of materials in traditional formats or a gateway to the world of electronically networked information. Which direction a library takes will have a great impact on interlibrary services. In an “archival” environment, external access to information will be deemphasized and interlibrary services will see cutbacks. In an “access” environment, interlibrary services must be genuinely recognized as vital to the library's mission and must be allocated truly sufficient resources to meet what will be an even greater demand.     

Children's Librarians and BPH Subregional Librarians

Ways are explored in which public library children's librarians can help sighted children increase their understanding of persons with visual impairment and their skills in communicating with them. Interviews were conducted with six children's librarians and six BPH subregional librarians, and searches were made in the public library catalogs and the Regional BPH Library fiche catalog for selected titles. Three areas for discussion emerged: reader advisory and reference questions, collection development, and programming. Public library children's librarians and BPH subregional librarians can jointly coordinate provision of children's services by identifying and building on present strengths in collection development and programming.     

Current Issues in Music Reference

Abstract

The climate of change in music reference represents a challenge to librarians. The three issues in the library literature that probably have the greatest impact on music reference service and are the subject of this paper are changes in users, sources, and modes of access to sources. These three issues are certainly related, as users need to use sources, and they need to know how to access them in order to use them. Reference librarians are called upon to mediate this process. Music library collections have their own peculiarities, however. Because they contain a wider variety of materials than many other kinds of library collections, reference librarians for music collections must be aware of the format, content, and intended uses of these materials, as well as the research patterns of their patrons. In the recent past, as cultural norms have changed with the paradigm of Western culture, users have wanted to use music libraries in new ways, and librarians are challenged to accommodate them. The musical genres used and requested by today's library patrons are different than they once were, both for listening and for academic study. Musical reference sources are being issued in electronic formats, and this represents a challenge for some users. The expanded use of interlibrary loan and electronic access to materials represents new opportunities and challenges. Music librarians are being called upon to provide services to patrons they may never see.     

The Effect of Information Brokers on Reference Services:

Twenty-four public and academic reference librarians were surveyed for the purpose of obtaining information about the services if any, that they currently provide for information brokers, the appropriateness of providing reference services for those who market the information obtained, and whether or not reference departments of public and academic libraries should provide competing fee based reference services. Few public or academic librarians objected to providing reference services for information brokers. Academic reference librarians expressed the view that service should not interfere with services for their primary clientele. Public reference librarians generally held the opinion that their services should be available to all and had already been provided for with public funds. Both public and academic reference librarians expressed concern about qualifications of some commercial suppliers of information as this effected their relationship with them. Public reference librarians were of the opinion that information brokers did not compete with the library and the library should be hesitant about providing fee based reference services. Academic reference librarians were divided in their opinoins about the latter.     

Analyzing Recorded Transactions to Extrapolate the Required Knowledge,Skills, and Abilities of Reference Desk Providers at an Urban,Academic/Public Library

ABSTRACT

Much has been written about the competencies that reference providers must exhibit to be successful at their positions given today's technology-rich, information environment. Many have proclaimed new mandatory technological and attitudinal qualities for librarians, while others have interviewed future, practicing, and hiring librarians for their perspectives on this topic. This study adds to the existing literature by examining a dataset of 9,683 recorded reference transactions collected during the fall 2012 semester in an urban, academic/public library. This dataset provides a very current look at the requisite knowledge, skills, and abilities that reference providers need to be successful at this library.     

Motivations and uses: Evaluating virtual reference service from the users' perspective

The questions of whether chat reference service is beneficial enough to users to justify the costs of offering it, and how valuable it is to users in fulfilling their information needs, have been primary concerns for librarians providing the service, for library administrators managing the service, and for funding agencies paying for it. The present study combines a traditional evaluation of the user's satisfaction with the reference encounter, with details of the user's information use and the user's motivation for using the chat reference service. This evaluation study assesses the effectiveness of chat reference service in meeting users' information needs.     

Selling the Library from the Reference Desk

Abstract

Many library directors and administrators spend a significant portion of their time attempting to market the library and its services. Getting patrons into the library and keeping their business is an integral part of the day-to-day management of the library. This mission, however, is not always effectively passed on to the front lines to the one group of people who face the patrons on a daily basis -the reference librarians.

This article will show how the library's service points can be used as marketing tools; outline what librarians and public service staff should know about their library; and discuss ways in which reference service librarians can help further the library's marketing and public relations goals.     

Cooperative Reference and Collection Development: The Science and Technology Group at the University of Tennessee Libraries

SUMMARY

The science and technology subject group within the reference department of the University of Tennessee Libraries brings together librarians from reference and other departments who have collection development and subject liaison duties. The authors describe the group's composition and explain how the sci/tech librarians work cooperatively toward goals set by both the Libraries' Reference & Instructional Services and Collection Development & Management departments. The sci/tech group's primary cooperative functions are to facilitate librarians' mutual assistance in organizing projects, share insights for reference and collection development/management activities, plan instruction efforts, discuss web site development, promote mastery of resources and tools, and address other concerns. The subject group enables librarians to clarify plans and procedures and to come to grips with complicated budget matters. A fundamental benefit of group discussions is that they provide an opportunity to explore viewpoints from librarians outside the reference team, leading to more well-rounded decisions. Together with the other subject groups, the sci/tech librarians and their coordinator identify major needs for information and work to provide solutions that improve library services to the academic community.     

Joy Is Bustin' Out All Over

When the American Library Association's Reference and Adult Services Division adopted "Information Services for Information Consumers: Guidelines for Providers" in June of 1990, it set the positive tone that reference work can and should have throughout the decade and beyond. Efforts by corporations to promote end-user online services, consumer-oriented CD-ROMs, and the like constitute an attempt to recreate the library. These attempts are, however, inherently flawed in that, unlike the library, they do not marshal the wide variety of information resources - print, online, CD-ROM, audio-visual, etc. - that libraries routinely make available. "Information Services or Information Consumers: Guidelines for Providers" challenges information providers (i.e., libraries and reference librarians) to take full advantage of new information and communications technology to make not only the services marketed to end users useful to library patrons, but to realize more fully the potential of the rich resources already concentrated in libraries. The guidelines offer reference librarians and library administrators and governing boards a vision of a comprehensive information service centered in and delivered by the library to the members of the community it is intended to serve. They also challenge reference librarians, library administrators, and governing boards to make that vision a reality. This will require creativity, entail some risks, and depend for its success upon the quality of the resources allocated to the task. The most important variable will be the quality of the front-line reference librarians and their commitment to that vision and the spirit of the guidelines.     

Meeting students on their own turf

Academic librarians strive to make their expertise and their library's resources available to remote users. At Bowling Green State University, librarians boldly left the library building and offered reference and research assistance to undergraduate students around campus. This column describes an effort to take library instruction to residence hall computer labs and discusses possible reasons why this attempt to extend library instructional services outside the library failed.     

Privacy and Library Public Services: Or,I Know What You Read Last Summer

SUMMARY

The privacy and confidentiality of library use are often at odds with efficiency in and customization of library public services. When librarians make decisions about services and privacy, they should consider strategic approaches to defining and discussing privacy and become familiar with the law of library privacy and their ethical commitment to privacy in library use. A wide range of library services and efficiencies threaten privacy and introduce the potential for secondary uses of personally identifying information collected by the library. Market failure for privacy weakens the value of consumer surveys and consent as substitutes for librarians' choices between privacy and services. Compromises such as those outlined by the ALA Intellectual Freedom Committee offer reasonable approaches to libraries and librarians struggling with the uncertainties that characterize the challenge of meeting both service and privacy interests.     

Reference Librarianship:

The current developments in technology and the various societal forces that are driving the major changes in librarianship are very similar to what was recognized as the birth of reference services during the latter half of the nineteenth century. Reference services evolved partly as a result of the spread of education which was iin a state of explosive development. As the general population of the time became better educated, more emphasis was put on the use of the library as an integral part of the educational curriculum. Libraries realized they needed skilled smmg to explain or instruct users in how to use the library and the collections. The intermediary between users and the library collections eventually came to be called reference librarians. From these beginnings, the role of reference librarianship has evolved to its present state. This paper discusses the current state of reference librarianship and the roles and duties of today's reference librarians.     

Demonstrating Value in Federal Medical Center Libraries

Abstract

Librarians in the federal sector, like librarians in other medical center libraries, increasingly find it necessary to prove their worth to administrators of their facilities in order to keep their libraries open. The Federal Libraries Section of the Medical Library Association developed a survey for use by federal librarians to help them quantify the value of library reference services provided. Using this survey, these librarians gathered statistics to show the library’s effect on patient care, education, and administrative questions.     

Issues in Implementing and Teaching the LEXIS®/NEXIS® Services in an Undergraduate Library

As the world's largest online full-text resource of business, news, legal, and medical information, Mead Data Central's LEXIS®, NEXIS®, and MEDIS® services pose special implementation and instructional challenges for academic reference librarians. This paper discusses such issues as telecommunications access, printing/downloading policies, staff education, and instructional strategies necessary to consider before offering this value-added reference service in an academic library.     

Disinformation,the Exxon Valdez,and the Search for Truth:

Prior investigations have indicated that government documents are a relatively underutilized resource by most librarians. Almost invariably, these studies have been of academic libraries and librarians. It is highly probable that scholars use documents unobtrusively and may be overlooked in many surveys, but it must be assumed that they are assisted in their use by knowledgeable documents librarians. A survey of documents use by public reference librarians serving 25 geographically dispersed population centers revealed that there was substantial awareness and use of U.S. government documents. Respondents indicated that they believed accredited programs in library education should provide reference librarians with the backgrounds necessary to assist with reference questions which concern current, but historical issues. Privatization or the commercialization of federal information sources is discussed as the possible consequence of the lack of knowledge and use of documents which can be used for reference purposes, as opposed to those which provide technical information. A Current Issues Seminar for programs of library education is proposed. Using current issues of the day as examples, the content of a typical seminar is reviewed.