Good Enough: The New Face of Reference

Abstract

College students today flock to Wikipedia in droves, while at the same time academic libraries continue to pour time and money into print reference collections that are rarely used and take huge amounts of our libraries’ limited space. While libraries have responded to space and access concerns by turning to electronic books, title-by-title selection is a time-consuming affair for a collection that sees low use. In this paper we examine the factors that have led to the point where libraries need to reexamine how they collect and provide access to reference sources. Through a content analysis of reference transcripts and transaction logs, an examination of usage statistics and interviews with librarians and library school students we illustrate how these changes have altered the way reference sources are collected and used at Grand Valley State University. We also outline 10 characteristics of the “new” reference collection and discuss how we see reference collections continuing to evolve in the coming years. As at many libraries, through conversations and interactions with students the librarians at Grand Valley State University, a comprehensive university in Allendale, MI, with approximately 24,000 students, noticed a decline in use of the print reference collection. While anecdotal evidence pointed strongly towards decreasing use of print reference sources and an increase in the use of online resources, we wanted to look at statistics to see if the numbers matched our impressions. In this paper we discuss our analysis of reference transactions and usage statistics. We also examine the factors behind this change in user behavior and the characteristics of today’s reference