· web viewstudent workers are asked not to answer reference questions except for hours,...

Running Head: INTERVIEW WITH A REFERENCE LIBRARIAN 1

Interview with a Reference Librarian

Whitni Watkins

MLIS student at San José State University

INTERVIEW WITH A REFERENCE LIBRARIAN 2

Identifying Information

Whitni Watkins

December 8, 2012

Recipient: Melissa Davis

Method: Phone – Full transcript included in appendix A.

Library Demographics

Name: Von Canon Library

Location: Buena Vista, Virginia

Library Type: Academic, University, nonprofit

Staff size: 3 Librarians, 2 paraprofessionals and 12 work studies

Collection size: 200,000 volumes (combination of books & eBooks)

Population served: 900 (FTE Faculty, Staff, & students)

Preparation

As part of a class assignment for Libr210 we were assigned to interview a reference

librarian responsible for reference collection development and maintenance. I chose to interview

a librarian from an academic library. The interview was conducted by phone with Melissa Davis,

the public services librarian in the Von Canon Library at Southern Virginia University (SVU). I

selected Melissa due to her responsibility with managing the reference collection in the Von

Canon Library. Melissa received her Bachelor’s degree from the University of Maine in 2003

and received her Master’s in Library Science from Clarion University in 2007 and began

working with SVU in 2008. As the public services librarian, Melissa is the main librarian that

staffs the reference desk at the Von Canon Library as well as working collectively with the

library staff on collection management and development.


Introduction

I contacted Melissa at the beginning of the 2012 fall semester about conducting this

interview, which she was obliged to do, and then followed up later for a set interview date. I

explained to Melissa that the interview consisted of approximately twenty questions on reference

collection and management and would take around 60 minutes to complete. The interview was

conducted in two parts as an unforeseen emergency required the first set interview to be cut

short. Melissa was thorough and candid with all her answers and I was able to obtain substantial

information on the involvement of developing and maintaining a useful reference collection in an

academic library with the impact of electronic resources and out dated information.

Body

General Reference

The interview began with basic questions about the reference services the Von Canon

Library offered to patrons. Melissa explained that the library offers a physical desk to its patrons

for reference help; “It [reference desk] sits contiguous to the circulation desk so we are able to

help who ever needs it at the time” (Davis 2012). Along with face-to-face reference the library

also offers email, phone and SMS reference services. These reference services do not extend

beyond the scheduled face-to-face desk hours because those are the hours when a librarian is

physically in the library. Student workers are asked not to answer reference questions except for

hours, directions and simple ready reference questions. The students are instead directed to

collect information on reference questions asked after hours and give the information to the next

staffed librarian.

The reference desk is staffed Monday thru Friday totaling 61 hours per week. The public

services librarian holds the main responsibility of working the reference desk carrying over 50%


of the total staffed hours. Each library professional and paraprofessional is required to staff the

reference desk on an evening shift, 5PM-9PM, one time a week. When questioned about the

ability of a paraprofessional to work the reference desk, Melissa assured me that the Von Canon

Library requires their paraprofessionals to go through professional development and extensive

training to increase their abilities in the library. The library also works closely with professors on

upcoming assignments, “We are as a group prepared to answer these questions and be able to

provide the information they are seeking when the student themselves are not quite certain”

(Davis, 2012). The collaboration they have with the instructors allows them to understand more

clearly the assignments that students will be referring to and asking questions about.

The Von Canon Library combines a reference desk worker with a library worker during

the day and rarely will the reference desk be staffed with two professionals at a time. When I

asked about allowing volunteers to help and work the reference desk, Melissa explained that they

do not invite volunteers behind the desk due to confidentiality of patron information. However,

they do not discourage volunteer work in the library as they currently have two interns working

in the archives and another who helps with inventory.

Reference Awareness

The library has a great initiative to bring awareness of the reference services to the

students through workshops, formal and informal, mandatory courses and orientation tours. They

provide orientation tours during the new student orientation weekend where students, separated

into teams, are toured around the campus including the library. The orientation lasts about 20-25

minutes and is set up like a game, “The game is organized across all three floors of the library to

find code words posted in certain places. The places the students are required to search are places

that will teach them the areas of the library both library related as well as necessary areas like


water and the bathroom” (Davis, 2012). It is important that the orientation tours teach the

students about the library, as they will view it as a place to find information rather than a waste

of time and unnecessary.

Melissa stated that students at SVU are required to take a one credit information literacy

course that teaches them the foundation of research. Students are assigned projects that utilize

the resources of the library in many aspects. Faculty can sign up for formal workshops with the

instructional services librarian where the librarian will come to their class and provide a formal

workshop that is tailored specifically for that course. The workshop introduces students to

resources that they will want to use for their research papers in that class. Students are also

allowed to sign up for informal workshops and research help from library professionals in the

library. The students will be responsible for bringing their topic and questions to the library but

they will be directed by the reference librarian to different resources and search techniques they

can use for finding information.

Reference Trends

Of the types of reference services offered to patrons, Melissa finds that traditional face-

to-face is the most effective with students, “…you can feel the hesitation in the student if they

are not sure because you can see it in their face” (Davis, 2012). This fits directly into the

discussion Cassel & Hiremath have about conducting a reference interview successfully. It

involves making oneself approachable with your use of body language and how you appear to

the users (Hiremath & Cassel, 2011). Understanding your body language as well as being able to

read the student’s body language will let you know if you are headed in the right direction. Also,

with a face-to-face reference interview you are able to assess if you have supplied sufficient

information to the patron.


The least effective form of reference and instructional services is the class visits and they

are only ineffective, as Melissa explains, “if we don’t connect them to the material right away”

(Davis, 2012). Melissa touched on that fact that if they are able to immediately get the students

examples of resources specific to their class it makes the workshop very effective. They continue

with the formal workshops even though the possibility of not being effective is greater than the

face-to-face because, “As the in classroom instruction has gone up the reference questions have

gone down. As we teach them specifically for that course the amount of students who wander up

to the reference desk drops” (Davis, 2012). The correlation found between the workshops and the

amount of reference questions being asked provides the Von Canon Library with enough

information to know that even the least effective of reference services is having a positive impact

on the students.

Collection Development

When it comes to evaluating the quality of the reference service the responsibility falls on

the public services librarian. Melissa explains that this is because the public services librarian has

the largest amount of time at the reference desk. The work as a collaborative group on resource

guides and reference material used at the reference desk, this helps ensure the quality of the

material being used.

When selecting material for the reference collection the library staff at the Von Canon

Library receives input from multiple avenues. The SVU faculty submits material they want to the

library and the library staff reviews the material for quality and need. There are times when items

submitted by faculty are duplicated and already available in the collection which will then not be

purchased. Other times there are older editions available in the library, which then the decision


will be made by the requested department on whether the older edition will suffice or if the

newer edition must be purchased.

Electronic resources are purchased by collection to get the best cost available. They

purchase electronic resources based on usage statistics. The databases come through VIVA, a

consortium for nonprofit academic libraries the Von Canon Library belongs to, the Virtual

Library of Virginia. The library also works with several services for collection development that

provide lists of new material and how they have been reviewed. One of these services is

CHOICE, which is a program offered by the American Library Association; this service sends

out monthly emails with books and reviews separated by selected topics. CHOICE has a section

specifically for resources for college libraries, which the Von Canon Library uses.

The library also bases collection purchases on specific patron requests. Patrons can

submit academic requests which will be looked at and assessed on need and whether it would

add value to the collection. Collection purchases also come from student statistics kept in the

library, Melissa explained, “Often collection purchases are made from the statistics kept from

inter-library loans, it they [students] are ordering the same book over and over again we

[recognize] we need to purchase it for our collection” (Davis, 2012).

Collection Cost Maintenance

Running an academic library is expensive and often library funds are tight. The Von

Canon Library has multiple ways it helps keep costs down while still purchasing new and

updated items. It is important to note that the Von Canon Library has a collection development

budget which is apportioned out to academic departments. Melissa states that “it [budget] gives

them an amount they can spend which helps them [departments] choose more wisely the

resources they desire” (Davis, 2012). The allocated budget helps cut costs on unnecessary


purchases in the library. They make sure they do not duplicate library material on purchases;

“The collection development staff member is responsible for checking what is being asked for,

as well as what is not being duplicated in the collection” (Davis, 2012). Keeping track of

purchases, providing fund limits and evaluating requests are just a few ways the Von Canon

Library works to keep costs down.

Collection Maintenance

With electronic resources being on the high rise I asked Melissa how they felt about

discarding reference resources once online access to the same material was secured. Her

response to that question was, “When we moved the remote from off to on-campus, we discarded

a huge number of periodicals from storage. Most didn’t bother me, but getting rid of the National

Geographic and Life magazine really did. We just didn’t have room in the new space, and there

was no scholastic reason to keep them W&L had better runs than we did” (Davis, 2012).¹

The Von Canon Library conducted a major weeding of material during the summer

months of 2010. During that time they removed items that were out of date, invaluable or had

newer editions in their databases or encyclopedia editions available electronically elsewhere.

They decided on what to remove by simply pulling items that were out of date and then

involving faculty input on whether the resources were still useful or could be discarded. All

material that was available in their electronic resources as a newer edition was eliminated.

I asked Melissa what material actually ended up staying in the collection; she responded

“We kept in our reference sections series where by losing a volume would be devastating; out-

of-print items considered classic reference by faculty and some especially valuable reference

items. We made most of the subject-specialty encyclopedias circulating” (Davis, 2012). The

library chose to keep irreplaceable and valuable material in the reference section as non-


circulating, due to the fact that they do not have security tapes or gates to monitor material.

Keeping them in the reference collection, which is located in front of the circulation desk,

provides a form of security to the collection. When asked why the library did not implement a

security system now, Melissa stated, “retrofitting would be really expensive and time consuming

and cost a lot more than replacing the books that disappear” (Davis, 2012). Melissa did point out

that material that accidentally walks away from the library often makes its way back, missing

and lost books are not a common occurrence in the Von Canon Library.

Conclusion

I feel the interview with Melissa provided beneficial insight to managing a reference

collection in an academic library. The interview provided me with better understanding of the

resources available to libraries for developing their collection as well good practices to uphold as

a professional librarian.

The Von Canon Library staff thrives on collaboration with each other, with faculty and

with students to develop and maintain their collection. This is an important concept to remember

and implement as a professional librarian; the more input you have often the better the decision.

In an academic library faculty input is very important to the value of developing the collection as

they are the voice of what would be the best supplement to the content being taught to the

students. It is important to include students as well as they are the audience of the library;

libraries will cease to exist if not for patrons.

A popular topic of discussion in the library field is budgets and budget cuts. I learned

new avenues of cutting down costs while keeping the collection valuable and up to date. First

off, having a collection budget allocated across departments will enforce wise purchases by

department heads because they have limited funding. This will reduce submissions of


unnecessary material and thus eliminating unnecessary spending. The use of a library

consortium also cuts costs by sharing resources with multiple libraries. Taking an initiative to

develop agreements with local libraries and neighboring universities allowing students to access

both libraries at no charge helps spread out costs of material among multiple budgets. Using the

statistics from the interlibrary loan is very logical; it will keep costs down by not having to pay

the costs to ship the books that are being requested often by students. The purchases of books

that are requested repeatedly through interlibrary loan will also keep the collection up to date and

help better serve its population. Before the Von Canon Library makes purchases for the

collection they double check for duplications or other editions and whether the resource is

available electronically. They also do not purchase a physical copy if it is currently available

online through their electronic resources or open access.

I did notice that the availability of reference services in the library is limited due to

staffing ability. Although they are not open as often as they would prefer, the Von Canon Library

still maintains quality in their reference services. This is important to remember that in a library

the services provided need to exemplify quality and not just quantity and the Von Canon Library

embraces this. They take care in making sure their paraprofessionals are well trained, the staff

shares resources with one another to keep each other up to date and they do not allow untrained

staff to answer reference questions which maintains the quality of answers provided to patrons.

Conducting this interview proved to be a great learning experience because I now have

more knowledge about maintaining a reference collection in an academic library. I have learned

about using consortiums, providing literacy workshops, incorporating faculty input to increase

the quality of reference services, the importance of maintaining reference quality instead of

quantity and keeping costs to a minimum. My goal is to work as a reference librarian in an


academic library and I will be able to apply the knowledge I have gained from this interview

towards achieving my goal.


References

Cassell, K.A. & Hiremath, U. (2011). Reference and information services in the 21st century (2nd ed. Revised). New York: Neal-Schuman.

Davis, M. (2012, November 15). Telephone Interview.


Footnotes

¹ The Von Canon Library has a reciprocal borrowing agreement with neighboring

universities, including the mentioned W&L (Washington & Lee). This allows Southern Virginia

University students, faculty and staff to check out materials from these universities.


Appendix A

Interview Transcript

REFERENCE:

Does the library offer a face-to-face/physical desk to its readers? We have a reference desk that sits contiguous to the circulation desk so we are able to help who ever needs it at the time when it is staffed.

If so, how many hours a week is the face-to-face reference desk staffed? What is the breakdown of hours in days (for example, 8:30-5), nights (for example, 7-10 M-Th), and weekends (for example, 1-5 Saturday, closed Sunday)? The reference desk is staffed for a total of 61 hours. It is staffed from 8am-9pm Mon-Thurs, 8am-5pm on Friday.

If live electronic reference is available (e.g., chat, instant messaging, SMS/text messaging), what are its hours? Same as the reference desk, we only offer SMS. We use to offer chat, through a service Meebo Chat, but Google bought it out and the service was discontinued.

Do live electronic reference hours extend beyond the face-to-face reference desk hours? The live reference hours do not extend beyond the face-to-face hours. If reference questions are asked after hours, we ask student workers to collect information on the questions asked and give it when someone is staffed later.

If they do not do live electronic reference, why don't they? Those are the hours the librarians are physically in the library.

How many hours a week does each librarian staff the desk? Right now only one librarian staffs the desk and that is around 30 hours a week, each librarian takes an evening that they staff the desk and they also staff the desk when Public Services librarian is teaching or completing time sheets. The evening shift consists from 5pm-9pm.

How many hours do paraprofessionals each staff the desk? One evening a week M-F, there is no staff at the reference desk after 5 at night.

Do volunteers staff the desk at all? No, volunteers are not invited behind the desk so they do not have any contact with patron information. We do have volunteers that work in the library, we have 2 interns in archives and we have another volunteer who does inventory.

What is the rationale for the allotment of hours by type of employee? The rationale is that the public services librarian has the most hours at the reference desk and the rest of the time is spread out through the staff.


How many librarians are on duty at a time? Between 8am-4pm there is 3 librarians plus 3 paraprofessionals and then student workers.

Do they combine paraprofessional and professional staff for double staffing at certain times? We have most of the day a library worker and then someone at the reference desk but it is very rare that you will find 2 library staff at the reference desk at one time.

Are there times when only a paraprofessional is on duty? If so, does this ever create problems in terms of the quality of reference service provided? Yes, Monday evening we have student worker and paraprofessional running the library. The paraprofessionals are very highly trained and go through professional development and webinars to increase their abilities in the library. They do not receive any complaints, because we have such good information from the professors we know what assignments are coming in so we are as a group prepared to answer these questions and be able to provide the information they are seeking when the student themselves are not quite certain.

Do the librarians conduct information literacy (aka research education or bibliographic instruction) sessions? Absolutely, we have informally in the library literacy workshops, we also have an instructional services librarian that goes into the classes in a more formal and structured format and we also have a one credit mandatory course in information literacy that all students have to take.

Orientation tours? If so, whom do they serve, how are the sessions arranged (faculty member calls or emails a librarian, the library schedules them each term/month, etc.), how long do they last, and how do users find out about them? We serve all new students, both transfer and freshman the tours are brought by their orientation team into the library, we spend a couple of minute of introduction on staff and they then give them a game. There are posted code words over the library, on the back of the game they provide their library information they get rewarded for doing both. The last about 20-25 minutes, students can work together or by themselves. The game is organized across all 3 floors of the library to find code words posted in certain place – the places the students are required to search are places that will teach them the areas of the library both library related as well as necessary areas like water and bathroom.

Of the different kinds of reference and instruction services his/her library provides such as one-on-one face-to-face, email, phone, voice-mail, snail-mail, live electronic (chat, IM, text/SMS), large-group, classroom, and so on, which does he/she feel is most effective? Least effective? Why? Most effective is face-to-face because you can feel the hesitation in the student if they are not sure because you can see it in their face. I think the least effective the in class visits if we don’t connect them to the material right away. If we print them resource specific to that class they can get hooked at it is very effective.

Does the library keep statistics on the number and kinds of questions asked, as well as how the question comes in (e.g., phone, in-person, live chat)? Yes


If so, what trends has the librarian noticed over the course of the time he/she has been employed there? For example, are there currently fewer or more questions than in the past? More technical/computer-related than before? More email or phone than live (whether face-to-face or chat/IM/text)?As the in classroom instruction has gone up the reference questions gone down. As we teach them specifically for that course the amount of students who wander up to the reference desk drop.

How and by whom (if at all) is the quality of reference service assessed at this library? Mostly by the Public services librarian, because they have the largest amount of time at the reference desk. They will share across staff. Resource guides on the page.

COLLECTION DEVELOPMENT AND COLLECTION MAINTENANCE

What criteria does he/she use for selecting books and journals for the reference collection and why? First, faculty need and desire. Faculty lets them know what they want specifically and they review and see if it is in fact something that will add to the collection and quality of resource. After that they have several services to see what is out there that is new and how it is review, Choice is one of the services they use, you get an email of what that is out there and how the books are reviewed. The emails come in once a month with a list and separated by topic. What criteria does he/she use for selecting e-resources? Electronic books are purchased by collection; about ½ of the collection are electronic books. Databases come through VIVA; it is consortium that the state library directors select which are kept or gotten rid of.

What does he/she do to control costs? The collection development budget is apportioned out to academic departments so it gives them an amount they can spend which helps them choose more wisely the resources they desire. The collection development person looks at what is being asked for and what is not duplicating in the collection.

How does he/she handle lost or missing books? We don’t have security tapes or security gate, which retrofitting would be really expensive and time consuming and cost a lot more than replacing books that disappear. Most library material shows up. The missing or lost books are not so common.

How does he/she handle requests for special purchases from patrons? Patron request, especially academic requests made by students is looked at by whether someone else would you and would it be valuable in the library collection. Often collection purchases are bade from the statistics kept from interlibrary loans; if they are ordering the same book over and over again we need to purchase it for our collection. These purchases often come out of the department budget.


How often is weeding of the reference collection done, what are the criteria for what gets weeded, and who actually pulls the books and transfers or discards them? A very large weeding of the reference material took place a couple of summers ago, 2010. The criteria were to get rid of stuff that is out of date or had newer editions in the databases like CREDO reference, and encyclopedias editions that were available elsewhere.Staff and library workers pulled and deleted from the list that was created. The list was created partly by librarians from going through and looking for items that are just old and outdated it also included faculty input about whether the resources were still useful. We haven’t weeded the reference collection since then, they kept items that couldn’t be replaced if lost and series books.

How does he/she feel about discarding (or sending to stacks or to remote storage) paper or microform reference sources once online access to the same material has been secured? When we moved the remote from off- to on-campus, we discarded a huge number of periodicals from storage. Most didn’t bother me, but getting rid of the National Geographic and Life magazines really did. We just didn’t have room in the new space, and there was no scholastic reason to keep them – W&L had better runs than we did.

Is there currently a lot of duplication between paper or microform reference material and e-resource equivalents in his/her collection?No, there is not. We completed a major weeding of the reference section about two years ago. We kept in our reference sections series where losing a volume would be devastating; out-of-print items considered classic reference by faculty and some especially valuable reference items. We made most of the subject-specialty encyclopedias circulating. We got rid of almost everything duplicated by e-resources that were newer editions.

· web viewstudent workers are asked not to answer reference questions except for hours,...

Documents