assistance would continue.

More recently, Steven Bell re-

counted his well-publicized Columbia University debate with

Sarah Watstein on the future of the reference desk. Bell advo-

cates that academic reference desks should be eliminated by

2012 and offers some standard rationales for his position: mobile

technology negates the need for a physical desk; students or

paraprofessionals can staff a desk because reference questions

are largely printer- and computer-related; and a “just-in-time”

model of reference service (as opposed to “just-in-case” desk

sitting) puts professional skills to better use elsewhere, including

classrooms, residence halls, or academic departments. His

opponent argued that the reference desk remains a powerful

symbol of the culture of academic libraries; the value of personal

service should not be underestimated; reference desks are busy

despite decreased transactions; users of complex information

tools need an intermediary; a teachable moment in person is not

equal to a teachable moment online; and modern physical

reference desks are designed to complement the versatile

learning environments that are found in academic libraries.

Neal responded to Bell's call for the elimination of the

reference desk with a rather pragmatic middle-of the road stand

and calls for just the type of examination this study hopes to

accomplish:

Especially with relatively few staff, a library with a busy reference desk

can't just get rid of it because of some ‘visionary’ proclamation. Simi-

larly, a library with a slow reference desk can't hold on to one for the sake

of tradition, especially if time and money can allow librarians to engage

in more visionary work. Ultimately, it's up to individual libraries to

decide whether ‘traditional’ reference desk duties seem more useful for

their communities, or (time and money permitting) if librarians should do

more than clearing various mechanical jams and pointing patrons to the

bathroom…. Some institutional honesty and a willingness to critically

examine the nature of reference desk transactions seems a good place to

start.

Whitson advocates a “differentiated service” model that dis-

cards the idea of reference service as a single “desk” activity and

categorizes different levels of service (directions, technical as-

sistance, information look-up, research consultation, and library

instruction) which must each be structured, staffed, supported,

and evaluated on its own terms.

In a survey of literature on

perceptions of reference services from the perspectives of

managers, librarians, and users, Rieh concludes that “alternative

reference service models can best be redesigned by looking more

closely at how users are dealing with their information problems

and how they get help from reference librarians in technological

environments.”

This study attempts to address the latter, based

on the questions users posed at a reference desk; it looks at the

actual cost-effectiveness of staffing a reference desk based on

librarian salaries and the nature of the questions asked.

METHODOLOGY

Stetson University is a private university (approximately 2500

FTE) with a main library that holds about 336,000 volumes and

bound periodicals, as well as 376,000 federal documents. The

library subscribes to more than 100 subscription databases and

holds more than 20,000 print and electronic journal titles. The

reference desk is staffed for 68 out of 92 open hours per week,

including nights and weekends, by four full-time and two part-

time librarians, all of whom hold the MLS degree. During the

study periods, the library housed between 27 and 40 public

workstations that had Internet access and the Microsoft Office

suite of software loaded; each computer also had an individual

printer attached. The library building offers both wired and

wireless Internet access for laptops as well.

For a two-month period beginning in October 2002, Stetson

University reference librarians recorded all reference question

asked at the reference desk along with the source(s) u sed to try to

answer them. All questions were recorded that came to the

reference desk in person, by phone, or by email. Although most

questions came in person, no distinction was made in the data

collection as to the manner in which the question came to the

desk. The two-month study was repeated in spring 2003, spring

2006, and fall 2006 to account for changes in class assignments

and changes over time.

The original study design focused not on the questions asked,

but on the sources used to answer the questions. Librarians

wanted to test their hypothesis that online sources were used far

more than print reference books to answer questions. The 2002–

2003 data were used in a previously published study that

showed, as librarians had suspected, that online sources were

used much more than print reference sources to answer ques-

tions.

That study suggested as an area of further research “an

analysis of what students want to know – in other words, what

questions are students asking and can library reference services

better address the students' information needs.”

The current

study, therefore, addresses that suggestion and focuses on the

questions asked over the total eight-month study period.

To collect the data, reference librarians recorded each ques-

tion along with the source or sources used to answer the ques-

tion. The first 2 mont hs, librarians manually recorded the

questions and sources used to answer them and then the data

were transcribed into an Excel spreadsheet. During the

subsequent study periods, librarians typed the questions and

sources directly into an Excel spreadsheet at the reference desk.

Questions were necessarily paraphrased, but librarians tried to

write or enter a question as soon as possible after the question

had been asked to ensure the question was accurately repre-

sented and included all the answer sources. A data monitor

reviewed the spreadsheet daily to clean up typographical errors,

to maintain data consistency, and to assign categories to the

sources used to answer the questions.

Because the original study focused on the answer sources and

not the questions, it was decided in the study design to exclude

two transaction categories as they would not yield any mean-

ingful answer source data; therefore 2528 directional and

“machine” transactions, though counted in the aggrega te, were

not logged as questions. Directional questions that did not refer

to the collection (the location of the restroom, a campus building,

or an office) were excluded, along with “machine” transactions

(paper jams, cartridge changes, and copier problems) that did not

directly relate to an information need. Directional queries that

related to the collection (the location of a call number, the

location of a dictionary, or the locat ion of a specific format or

collection), however, were included in the question spreadsheet.

Similarly, if a hardware or software question relat ed to an in-

formation need (for example, downloading a document, add-

ressing error messages, printing documents, or performing

standard functions in the Microsoft Office suite programs), it

was included in the question spreadsheet.

Data Analysis

To facilitate data analysis in the current study, the four

spreadsheets from the four study periods were combined into

September 2008 391