Reference service research
Evidence-based libraries social impact: In-Time-of-Crisis Reference Queries. A survey
Study scope and methods.
This research study proposal uses the methods of social research and the support of scholarly literature gathered from different fields to corroborate the relevance of the paper’s thesis, i.e. the need to be able to document the impact of libraries on the social context through the survey of the number of “In-Time-of-Crisis” queries (by crisis type) asked at the reference desk (virtual or not) of Public Libraries in the United States. The final results of the completed research is meant to be a tool for libraries’ administrators and reference librarians for exploring the possibility of library’s service improvements—a decision-making aid, in other words.
Abstract
This study’s intent is to provide an understanding of “In-Time-of-Crisis” (or ITC) questions library users ask at reference portals in Public Libraries. Libraries currently collect the total of number reference questions reaching the reference portal through modalities that include transactions negotiated in-person or via e-mail, chat, IMs or phone—but not the questions’ content. How do we tell the story about users’ needs? How do we determine the value to users of successfully answered queries to users? What are the transaction’s outcomes? The relevance of libraries is seen less in their capacity to compete with bookstores—or their ability to quickly adapt to ever changing requests for the delivery of information through new media—than in becoming a social network, which people can rely upon when difficulty strikes. Social services and police take the brunt of these situations but the sheer amount of the need for help leaves possibilities for other institutions to join forces in the support of their local community. Libraries have an opportunity to become or strengthen their Community Information center role. This study explores the content of “In-Time-of-Crisis” questions with a survey of libraries in major urban centers of the United States.
Playing Smart: an overview of gaming in libraries.
This research focuses on the opportunities that the implementation of a new program may offer in bringing a new type of publics into the library, i.e. gamers. The document does not forgo of the basic marketing principle that a product needs a market segment to be possible, nor that the limited budgets of libraries determine how much the library can accomplish, nor that programming choices ought to include all segments of the social enclave. The evaluation of which service to implement relies on the values and principles that underwrite the library’s activities which are sustained by the ethical behavior of the trained librarians that manage them. In this document, the behavior in question is synthesized with one declarative sentence—be a presence. “The word presence in this sense expresses, in the library setting, what Rousseau abdicated as the core attitude that teachers should have in (child) education (Lovlie, 2002). Presence is the ability to the relate to the world (physical) in which the library patrons live, knowing when to intervene and use kairos, to exploit the convergent moments of need and offering. Presence is more then empathy or a feeling for patrons because it is grounded in the connection with the patrons' realms.” (from the document, p.27). It is the understanding of this realm that allows librarians to create in libraries the premise for anyone to achieve their intellectual independence in a space removed from commercialism and exploitation. The focus of this document is on the improvement of library service.