Reference Librarians at the Reference Desk in a Learning Commons: A Mixed Methods Evaluation

Abstract

At the University of Massachusetts Amherst’s W.E.B. Du Bois Library’s Learning Commons, only reference librarians staff the Reference and Research Assistance Desk. Surveys, a focus group, reference question transcriptions, and question-type tallies indicate that this service model is strongly preferred by users and librarians over the previous tiered model.