Reference librarians are constantly balancing their reference duties against other duties, for example, collection development and departmental liaison. The author works as a reference librarian at Texas A&M University-Commerce Libraries in Commerce, Texas. The university has approximately 11,000 students, a large number of whom are…

The growth in number and kind of online reference services has resulted in both new users consulting library research services as well as new patterns of service use. Staffing in-person and virtual reference services desks adequately requires a systematic analysis of patterns of use across service points in order to successfully meet fluctuating…

Declining reference statistics, diminishing human resources, and the desire to be more proactive and embedded in academic departments, prompted the University of South Florida Library to create a taskforce for re-envisioning reference services. The taskforce was charged with examining the staffing patterns at the desk and developing…

Details the current organization and functions of the various components of the British Library, with the exception of central administration. Included are the library board, reference division, lending division, bibliographic services division, and research and development department. (FM)

The results of a managerial rotation program in a medium-sized academic library reference department are presented. After meeting certain minimal eligibility requirements, librarians in this department take turns on a 2-year cycle serving as head of the department. This case study is used as a model to assess both the advantages and disadvantages…

Zero Based Staffing/Services (ZBS/S)--a management tool designed to portray the relationship between the people or staff of an agency and the services they perform--was used in this study to inventory library services and staffing at the Central State University Library and provide a long-range planning analysis for library and university…

This report summarizes research undertaken at the Sterling C. Evans Library, Texas A & M University to assess the impact that end user information retrieval systems may have on library staff and users. Two systems, BRS/After Dark and Search Helper, were made available in the library for end user searching at no cost. A total of 260 users…

This project examined a series of alternative policies for the management and funding of university libraries as they adopt and adapt to various information science technologies to accomplish the functions of acquisitions, cataloging, circulation, and reference services. Comparative case studies were completed at the University of Chicago,…

This paper reports on a study conducted to determine if staffing changes were necessary at the information desk at the main branch of the Cleveland Heights-University Heights Public Library (Ohio). Questions addressed included: (1) What times are busiest in the library? (2) Should there be changes in staffing the reference desk that could lead to…

Seven articles on library reference services highlight reference obsolescence in academic libraries, major studies of unobtrusive reference tests, methods for evaluating reference desk performance, reference interview evaluation, problems of reference desk control, online searching by end users, and reference collection development in…