Friday, April 20, 2007

It's ok to refer digital reference patrons to print materials...really

In our cooperative chat reference service, I have noticed that some librarians rarely point students to print resources when those resources may in fact be the best (and sometimes only) source of information for the topic in question. In one example, a student logged in repeatedly asking for help on the same question, and no one thought to recommend what is pretty much a standard reference source that would have quickly answered the question.

There are a lot of reasons why a librarian in chat or IM might rush to recommend an online source:
  • The librarian assumes that the patron isn't on campus (or even in the library) and thus has no interest in print resources. This assumption is not often accurate. In our chat service, we find that at 40% of all chat sessions originate from computers here on campus.
  • Fearing impatience (often, rightly so) from the patron, the librarian takes a satisficing approach to the patron's information need and rushes to show the student something that is maybe, just maybe, good enough to placate the patron for the moment. It may be that some librarians then intend to recommend to print sources, as they feel they have earned the trust of the patron; some do go on and suggest specific sources or suggest a search strategy in the catalog, but many never do.
  • The librarian mistakenly assumes that since the patron is online, ergo the patron only will accept online sources.
Although I am beginning to scale back on my acquisitions here at the library in Baruch for print reference sources, I still feel that librarians in digital reference must advocate on behalf of the richness of their print collections whenever appropriate. If we don't speak up for print collections and remind users of them, who will?

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Thursday, November 02, 2006

UPenn librarians making IM friends

For a long time, I've been lurking on the RSS feed for the blog for library staff at the University of Pennsylvania and was amused today to read this post about an exchange a librarian had with a student on the library's IM service.

By the way, if I am reading a blog feed that is clearly not aimed at me but rather at a small group of people who work together, is it accurate to call me a "lurker?" A "busybody?" Or maybe just "plain curious?"

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