That Thing You Do

Abstract

Let's do a little experiment. Before you read the rest of this article, go to your reference desk (or information desk, or help desk, or whatever term you use for your primary, in-person service point). Look around. What do you see? Are there people in the area? Are they staff or users? What are they doing? What materials are they reading or using? What personal materials are they reading or using? Are they alone or in groups? Is it noisy or silent? By some accounts, what you should be witnessing is a silent, dusty, empty warehouse with rows of books in perfect order, waiting for the odd chance that someone will come in to use one of them. The computers might be in use, but only for e-mail or basic Web surfing. Because the is an irrelevant, technological backwater, there is little demand for even this aspect of service. The reference librarian sits waiting for that one scholar who still uses print resources to come in and ask for help. The circulation staff spends their time rearranging the books on the shelves--the equivalent of rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. And everyone reminisces about the good old days when people actually used the library. My guess is that this is not at all the image that you see (unless the is closed when you are conducting the experiment). When I go to a library--and especially a public library--I see lots of people doing lots of different things. Rather than a silent and empty reading room, the reference area is crowded and noisy. It echoes with the sound of conversations, keyboards, printers, self-checkout machines, cell phones, and the ever-present music seeping out of teenagers' headphones. There is activity, vitality, and a sense of energy. The atmosphere is more like that of a shopping mall than a museum. Interestingly, this environment is true no matter which branch of my public I enter. Whether at the downtown branch that serves primarily inner-city residents, or at a brand-new suburban branch, the excitement of the is the same. Even my academic library, which is currently undergoing a $100 million expansion (see www.maddenlibrary.org for details), retains that same atmosphere. Although some of our users may be forced to come in because of homework assignments, most are here because they see the as a destination of choice on campus. They use the computers; read the magazines and newspapers; check out and return books; write, revise, and edit papers; and generally hang out with each other. Students interact with other students, faculty, and staff. Our space may be small, but our users continue to take advantage of it as much as possible. My guess is that this is exactly the type of image that you see at your library. As with Mark Twain's death, the demise of the has been greatly exaggerated. Much has been written about library as place. Those who predict the coming irrelevancy of the have focused on only one of its key functions. They see the role of the primarily as a source of information, which is only one of many activities that take place there. With the proliferation of alternative information sources (especially the Internet), our users are able to retrieve factual information on their own much more easily than at any time in human history. If the sole--or even primary--purpose of the were to be a source of factual information, its future would, indeed, be rather limited. However, most people use the for many reasons other than to find factual information. My previous column (Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader? RUSQ 47, no. 1: 8-9) addressed the role of the reference librarian. Reference librarians are not--nor were we ever--simple answering machines. While we do get the odd factual question, most of the time we are engaged with our users in much more complex interactions. Reference statistics are down not because we are doing less to assist our users, but because we historically measured that assistance based on what was the easiest to count. …