The Merger of Government Documents and Reference at a Mid-Size University: A 24-Year Retrospective

Abstract

T he University of Louisville (UofL) Libraries consists of the main library, Ekstrom Library, along with five branches. The Libraries are a member of the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) and possess approximately 2.2 million items. UofL has served as a Federal FDL Program. As of 2023, the University of Louisville Libraries' Government Documents Department and the Reference Department have been merged for 24 years, beginning in 1999.Several writers argued that the key to successful documents reference is knowledgeable staff and brisk user instruction of documents collections. 1 Maggie Farrell stated that a "merged reference center must 'intellectually' integrate the documents collection into reference services, library instruction, and library promotion activities." 2 She believed that integrated reference service would lead to higher documents use. So did this intellectual integration occur with the department mergers at the University of Louisville and what was the outcome when government documents became the responsibility of every librarian in the merged department? This paper explores how the University of Louisville Libraries handled the documents merger, what changes have occurred since the merger, and the state of the library's government documents reference services today.