T echnology has changed the nature of reference desk inquiries significantly. The functions of the library are increasingly being combined with those of computer centers to form Information Commons.1 In addition to electronic collections and resources, libraries regularly offer services such as word processing, open Internet searching, e-mail and chat services, printing, and photocopying. Providing support for wireless networks, along with hardware and software troubleshooting, are services that are often managed by reference staff. Students are asking questions about increasingly sophisticated computer operations and software functions along with their more traditional informational queries. Many of these questions do not always fit well into the original definitions of reference help and require a very different skill set to answer them adequately. At the authors' own institution, discussions over how to record these new requests demonstrated frustration and a lack of consistency when using the current classification system.In 2001, Warner reported a new classification system for reference questions. Her institution, a health sciences library, was undergoing a physical redesign and consolidation of the circulation and reference service desks, and, concurrently, was assessing staffing and collection needs. The staff was having trouble recording query statistics and separating reference or information questions using traditional definitions.
2Many libraries depend heavily on statistics for planning and managing reference services and assessing the value and usefulness of the library' s collection. The statistics must also reflect the increasing responsibility libraries are assuming for providing other campuswide services such as computing facilities.3 For accuracy' s sake, statistics must be collected in a clear and consistent fashion by the staff. Classifications of questions must be distinguishable and understandable if results are to be used effectively for planning and evaluation. This study analyzes reference data collected over five semesters at an academic library comparing Warner' s new classification system as reported in the literature to the traditional definitions of reference questions.
In an effort to establish benchmarks for comparison to national trends, a web-based survey explored the research, publication, and service activities of Florida academic librarians. Participants ranked the importance of professional activities to the tenure/promotion process. Findings suggest that perceived tenure and promotion demands do influence research productivity.
NOTICE: this is the author's version of a work that was accepted for publication in The Journal of Academic Librarianship. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A
Scholarly publishing continues to be a prominent expectation for many academic librarians. This survey explores characteristics, behaviors, motivations, institutional supports, and educational opportunities that help library practitioners become successful authors. It also looks at perceived confidence in research skills of both novice and experienced librarians. Many librarians show confidence in research activities related to their overall job assignments (literature searching, writing, and such) but find more sophisticated research skills, such as statistical analysis, more challenging. Findings indicate that having additional graduate research experience beyond the library degree, time-management skills, and collaboration with other researchers may provide useful benefits.
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