Reference in the

21st Century Library: Promoting Use by Opening AccessRUSSELL GROOMS AND ANNE BEEBE

WOODBRIDGE CAMPUS, LIBRARIANS

Woodbridge Loves Reference!

We love print!

We love reference!

We hate non-circulating print reference!

Students do not want them

Students/staff get frustrated

“Money Pit” – expensive and unused

Our Solution: Make all items circulate

Solution for your campus: Depends on

many factors.

“Information wants to be free!”

History of Reference

Books in Medieval libraries were literally

chained to the shelves.

Today, the chains are invisible, but

restrictions remain.

Rise of circulating libraries

Reference collections were retained.

Initially small, but grew with collections.

Why? Use, access and expense.

Reference made sense in early libraries, through the 20th Century.

So, what changed?Medieval “Chained” Library; Or,

How Students See Modern Reference Collections

Two Technological Developments

The Internet

Answers background questions that were the traditional territory of reference

Convenient, fast, familiar

Online Reference

Credo, GVRL, Oxford Online

Librarians focus instruction/reference on these rather than print reference.

Results

Nation-wide decline in use of print reference

Old reasons for having reference (e.g., high use and access) break down

The Internet

Answers background questions that were the traditional territory of reference

Convenient, fast, familiar

Online Reference

Credo, GVRL, Oxford Online

Librarians focus instruction/reference on these rather than print reference.

Results

Nation-wide decline in use of print reference

Old reasons for having reference (e.g., high use and access) break down

National Survey

CJCL and Collib Listservs

Similar trends observed nation-wide

and across types of academic libraries.

Most libraries are reacting to the

decline in reference use in some way!

Collections must evolve to meet

changing needs/preferences of users.

Failure to adjust results in a perceived

obsolescence of the library.

National Survey

Libraries are purchasing fewer reference

books than in the past. Many respondents

wrote that they buy new reference books

but make almost all circulate.

Survey Highlights

Importance of Reference “Reference books are expensive; students are not going to use books in the library. Therefore, circulate the books or don’t

buy them.”

“We feel it is more important to have reference materials being used, and if it means checking them out, then we will do so. … We have seen no problems since we interfiled and allowed reference books to circulate.”

“In the past, they may have been in such high demand that it would be important to have a copy. And there may be some titles where that is still true. But overall demand seems to have plummeted, so having them circulate doesn’t seem like sucha big deal anymore.”

“Reference books get so little use I can see no advantage to preventing them from circulating.”

“I find that the print reference collection has become a money pit in that the books are expensive and rarely used.”

“Students don’t understand the format distinctions. So why keep ref books separate?”

“While it’s important to have something handy to reach over and grab and show a student, … part of me thinks it’s ridiculous to have titles just sitting there on the shelf not being used at all.”

“Students were not discovering materials in the separate reference section. Now that I interfiled these titles, the books are discoverable.”

“For materials they will consult at length, they want sources they can use when they want, without having to work around the library’s schedule.”

“I am most interested in acquiring and maintaining resources that are used. Our print reference, non-circulating collection is rarely used. We are more often buying print reference books, but cataloguing them as circulating…”

“There are a few basic sources that should always be available on the shelf, but most traditional reference books could be circulated without a problem.”

Survey Highlights

Meeting the Challenge “We could reduce our reference collection to just one shelf and the only people would notice would be the library staff

who would have a hard time getting used to the idea.”

“We made most reference materials part of the circulating collection, with the same four-week check-out. We did

shorten some of the more in-demand titles to an overnight check-out in order to keep it available to students.”

“We interfiled most titles, made many circulate, and were able to change the look and function of our first floor by eliminating the reference stacks. Changes made 4 summers ago. No negative impact. “

“While we do have some print reference that is used heavily, the vast bulk of it would probably be more useful being

able to be circulated rather than being forever trapped in the library.”

“We're moving away from major multi-volume purchases and more towards affordable and subject driven materials.”

“We moved 85% of our reference collection to circulating or was weeded.”

“With new purchases, we are now evaluating whether or not to classify them as "reference" or just put them in circulating.”

“Unless we see a need for the book to stay on campus, all incoming "reference" books are now circ.”

“We haven't bought a reference book in 3 years. We should seriously think of making the whole collection circulating.”

“Over the past 6 months, we decreased our Reference collection by half. Some of these were discards/give aways,

but most were move to the Circulating collection. This was initially done because we needed more study space, but

once we started we realized a smaller collection could actually be more useful.”

You Have Many, Many Options

Choices:

Buy Only Electronic Reference

Buy Mostly Electronic Reference

Interfile

Reference with Shortened Loan Period

Circulate Many (But Not All) Items

Circulate All

Retain Ready Ref

Market Reference (Print or Online) in Instruction and Interactions

The solution for your campus depends on your circumstances!

Which do you think would work for your campus?

Our Approach

Each library is different, and must make a data-driven decision on what is best.

Good for Us

• Interfile

•Buy “smarter” print reference

•Make incoming “reference” books circ.

•Make all books circ.

•Retain reserves and tiny (18 items) ready ref collections.

Bad for Us

•Weed most/all reference (Why not: Ref books have great info.)

•Stop buying new print reference (Why not: A robust print collection is absolutely essential. Print offers some advantages over electronic.)

Reasons to Keep or Eliminate Ref

Keep Eliminate

► Access

► $

► Online Ref

► Access

► $

► Online Ref

Multi-volume Sets

Problems – $ and integrity of the set

Solutions

Acquisitions. We rarely buy new multi-

volume sets. Instead, focus on ref books

with narrower focus. These are more likely

to be found browsing and circulate.

Multi-volume sets less likely to circ

Benefits outweigh risks (in our opinion)

We accept some risk when circulating any

item.

Potential for ILL/ICL Abuse

Problem – Anyone can request any book from our campus. What if we can’t keep Black’s Law Dictionary or the PDR for our students?

Solutions

Wait to see if this is actually a problem. So far, it’s not.

Possibly restrict ILL on some books.

If it only happens occasionally, we are glad to see books getting used.

Woodbridge Library, 2012

Space

Past: High use justified space for reference.

Today: Need more space for students.

Low Reference Use

Reference books not found.

Student browse by subject and expect all books on a topic to be in the same area. Librarians reinforce this idea.

Students want books that can be checked out.

Impending move

Solutions evolved slowly. We didn’t initially plan to eliminate reference.

Interfiling (Fall 2012)

Plan

Combine collections. Ref still didn’t circulate.

Remove ref shelves and add study tables.

Make space through weeding of both ref and circ.

Prepare for move to new building.

Effects

Students (and librarians) discovered reference books!

Collection met students’ expectation that all books on a subject are located together.

Serendipitous discovery in browsing.

Collection development became easier (unexpected benefit).

Study tables got tremendous use. Gatecounts increased.

Ref-to-Circ (Fall - Spring 2012)

Lingering Problems After Interfiling

Ref use still low. Students want books that can be checked out.

Students/librarians still frustrated with non-circulating status.

Many books marked “ref” were clearly meant to circulate.

Solution: Evaluate individual titles and make many circ.

Expected to move a large portion of the collection but not all.

Criteria for moving to circ.

Number of volumes in set (single volumes mostly)

Length of entries

Topic coverage – broad or specific

Expected amount of use

Availability of other similar materials

Many books moved to circ, but many remained ref

S range with blue triangles indicating former reference. Several examples of “reference” books meant to be browsed and digested.

Circ-to-Ref, Phase 2 (Summer 2014)

Previous solutions helped, but librarians still encountered problems.

Students frustrated. They prefer circ, even when ref is better.

Ref books moved to circ were used, but current ref books were not.

Idea: To move more ref to circ, retaining only essential reference.

Used similar criteria as first time.

Wanted multi-volume sets to circ.

Default: Move to circ. Keep as ref only if there is a compelling reason.

Eventually, just two dozen ref books (dictionaries, almanacs, atlases…)

Even with these core reference books, we could not justify restricting circulation.

High-use items usually had multiple copies.

New idea: Eliminate reference.

Impact

Increased reference use!

Circ stats for “reference” books!

Campus Survey

Overview 30 responses - Good representation of campuses/staff

Librarians and library specialists – very, very similar.

31% of non-admin respondents have gotten frustrated when explaining to students that ref books do not circulate. (75% at MA and WO)

50% of respondents felt it is important to maintain non-circulating reference. Varies by campus: 100% at AL.

Current Collections

Circulate ref?

No (can override) – AL & AN

Yes – ELI, LO, MEC, MA & WO

Collection

“Traditional” (Separate ref) – AL & AN

Interfiled – MEC

No Distinction – LO, MA & WO

Yes No Maybe

Is It Important for

Your Campus to

Have Ref Books

that Do Not Circ?

Campus Survey

Campuses & Staff Agreement between librarians and specialists

Differences

Specialists want online only, but librarians want mostly online.

Librarians more likely to circ many but not all ref books.

Administration unanimously wants focus on electronic ref but wants some new print ref as well.

Campuses. Viewpoint depended on circumstances:

Size of collection – Larger more likely to need ref.

Special Collections – ELI, medical, legal

Staff viewpoints

These differences were observed in the national survey as well.

Eliminating Reference

Rate this idea for your campus

1 (terrible idea) – 10 (great idea)

Overall: 6.87

Opinions differed dramatically by

campus.

Campus Survey

Traditional Concerns Expense

“The traditional fear of losing expensive reference resources is always there.”

“Not getting the books back for other patrons to use. Our small collection could not sustain too much loss.”

“Biggest concerns are that Ref materials are expensive. Worried that students would damage or misplace one piece of a hard to replace set. That said, it is

honestly very rare for me to have a student who is even interested in the print reference materials.”

“Certain items that we would no longer be able to afford to replace with budget cuts would have to be excluded or only allowed a one-day check out, and not

to community patrons.”

Access/Class Assignments

“Some of our reference collection is in very high demand for well established assignments. Having these materials circulate would cause educational disruption.”

“I see no compelling reason for keeping a reference collection and am all for integration. My concern, though, is when instructors require students to use books

from the library (why they do is another issue). The fact that students don't see reference materials in the circulating collection is a good thing so students don't get

burned by using a traditional (tertiary) reference source in this case. An awful lot of instructors are use to reference as a separate location so they won't know (or

won't want to have to explain to students) that students will find inappropriate sources in the circulating collection for their assignments.”

“There are very few that we don't allow to circulate. Those that don't circulate are generally treated as items on reserve because we know specific classes are

using them and we want to make sure they are available.”

“I only foresee a few that I think are too high use to be loaned out. Otherwise, I do not see the need for a separate collect ion.”

Multi-volume Sets

“I would hate for a large set to be broken up.”

“Replacement cost for volumes. Most reference collections cost hundreds of dollars so I would want a firm decision on how to handle charging for and replacing

a single volume of a set.”

Campus Survey

“New” Concerns No Change Needed

“Our reference collection works well the way it is and I am a strong defender of keeping it so. I'm not opposed to having electronic reference materials supplement the non-circulating print reference collection, but that's as far as I'm willing to go.”

“Nothing would make me comfortable with allowing reference materials to circulate.”

“Why purchase them? Reference books are for quick bits of information that can be photocopied. Checking them out defeats their purpose so why bother with them at all?”

Space

“Finding shelf space in the circulating collection. We are not physically set up to absorb the reference collection.”

“Allocating space on the circulating shelves.”

Reference as a Teaching Tool

“We use the reference collection pedagogically. We could not teach discovery with incomplete sets if material were checked out. We also have curriculum-specific collections (paralegal) that rely on access to print materials for instruction and are required for accreditation.”

Print vs Electronic

“YES! Print reference books that do not circulate enable us to generally have something that will be useful to our patrons. I do not want to rely on electronic collections to replace a non-circulating reference collection for a variety of reasons: sometimes the network goes down, sometimes databases don't work, seeing how a reference item functions in print can facilitate understanding of how it works (i.e., alphabetically, subject, etc.), ensures that we will almost always have something that can be useful (especially when a class or many people are all working on a similar topic), most reference materials are expense plus it's generally not possible to replace one volume that was never returned, some people prefer print, print materials reinforce that everything is not online, not everyone has internet access at home, and because we are about providing access to information. Customer service isn't always about fulfilling the immediate needs of the individual in front of you. It's also about serving a wider population.”

Campus Survey

Solutions Interfile

“Most, if not all, of our student body come from schools that do not use reference and keeping a collection non-circulating only limits access. It is a very foreign

concept in 2014. Additionally there is great confusion as to why there is a separation which only adds to the stress of research.”

Marketing Resources

“I'm all for integration but fear the further loss of reference materials as important resources for learning. I suggest creating a LibGuide and other resources

explaining the use of "reference" materials so encyclopedias, dictionaries, and the like can be introduced to students as helpful and appropriate resources. I think

the Libraries should make Wikipedia a prominent source link from our Web and other resources as a way to shock instructors into the conversation about WHEN

Wikipedia is appropriate for research. After all, it has no more mistakes than Britannica.”

Smaller Ref Collection

“… I do believe we have more books marked as reference than I believe we should. I have changed a number of books to circulat ing in my time here, and will

continue to do so where I feel the label is inappropriate.”

“Over the last several years we have reduced the size of our print reference collection considerably. I would advocate for reducing it further & relying more heavily

on electronic sources for truly "reference" needs (as we do now) but I am uncomfortable eliminating the instructional uses of the print reference collection.”

“… I think our collection of reference books could be much smaller.”

Ready Ref

“Maybe there should be a handful of non-circulating volumes like the OED, kept in a small ready reference area.”

“There are select books that should be ready reference. Most should be part of the circulating collection. This is in part because many reference resources are

already online as well as the fact that students don't tend to use in-library use only print reference materials.”

“There are some items (citation guides and particular reference items) that are in high demand. Circulating these items would narrow the number of students who

could use them. To address this, I'd make those items ready reference and available either at the circ desk or research desk.”

“I think there are a handful of ready reference books that we need to keep in the library for quick reference use by all patrons…”

Campus Survey

Success! AN – “Many of our reference books have been changed to circulating and placed in the circulating collection already and we will check

out any remaining reference books with librarian approval (which we are very liberal in giving). I have no concerns about this or moving

away from a reference collection.”

MA – “… We interfiled our reference and circulating collections and made the decision to circulate nearly everything, … The reference

items certainly get more attention and use now, which is great and what we were hoping for!”

MA – “We already circulate our reference books, and when we made the transition in Summer 2013, our concerns were possibly losing

expensive items or parts of multi-volume sets, but so far we haven't had very many issues.”

WO – “Fall 2014 Woodbridge changed all reference item to circulate. Our concern was with ILL - that is, an increase of traditional reference

being requested by patrons from other colleges and not being available for use by our own students. This has not been the case so far.”

WO – “Woodbridge has seen a positive increase of check out of former titles labeled reference. Not titles we expected but subject specific.”

LO – “We intershelved our reference books in preparation for our move to a new facility. I don't think any of us on the staff were upset about

it or have found problems with it.”

LO – “We have not had any problems circulating reference titles.”

LO - “The reference collection was generally underutilized when it was non-circulating.”

LO – “All items should be barcoded and the status changed to circulating BEFORE being intershelved. This is hugely important! I would like to

use additional exclamation points to emphasize how necessary this is. :) Do not attempt to fix-as-you-go (i.e. change the status/barcode

additional volumes as students bring them to the desk).

Reverse Course

If eliminating reference doesn’t work, you can easily reverse course.

National survey: “Interestingly enough, we interfiled all Ref books and made them circulating a few years back. We recognized that it wasn't working so well. So we re-assessed our entire collection (~23,000 titles) and created a new reference collection that is pulled out in its own section and that does not circulate (~250 titles). Kind of the reverse of what many libraries seem to be doing right now. So far, we feel this has been a good experience. Some students are frustrated that they have to use the books in the library. But having the books available to them in any capacity is better than if we hadn't re-created the reference collection.”

Our solution may not work for your library, but we hope this presentation prompts discussion on your campus. You have several options, and many of them are easily implemented.

Questions?

Recommended Reading

East, J. W. (2010). "The Rolls Royce of the library reference collection": The subject encyclopedia in the age of Wikipedia. Reference & User Services Quarterly, 50(2), 162-169.

Hellyer, P. (2009, March). Reference 2.0. AALL Spectrum, 13(5), 24-27.

Herzog, B. (2011, April 7). Update on eliminating our reference collection [Web log post]. Retrieved from http://www.swissarmylibrarian.net/2011/04/07/update-on-eliminating-our-reference-collection/

O’Gorman, J. & Trott, B. (2009). What will become of reference in academic and public libraries? Journal of Library Administration, 49(4), 327–339. doi: 10.1080/01930820902832421.

Polanka, S. (2008, January 1/15). Is print reference dead? Booklist, 104 (9-10), 127.

Singer, C. A. (2010). Ready reference collections: A history. Reference & User Services Quarterly, 49(3), 253-264.

Vnuk, R. (2013, September 15). Reference collections in an ever-shrinking print environment. Booklist, 110(2), 54.

Image Credits

Slide 2: https://www.flickr.com/photos/unaexcusa/8998625137/

Slide 3: http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/3478665

Slide 4: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypertext_Transfer_Protocol

Slide 12: The 'Encyclopedia' of Denis Diderot . [Fine Art]. Retrieved

from Encyclopædia Britannica ImageQuest.

http://quest.eb.com/#/search/108_244049/1/108_244049/cite

Slide 24: http://pixabay.com/en/photos/success/