Waltz Practicum: in conversation with a reference librarian.

In a conversation with one of the reference staffers, I got a pretty good glimpse as to their concerns about the provision of reference work at the Waltz Library. He basically said that there really were only to kinds of questions that they get. Either a person looking for a specific piece of material (score, book, sound recording) or a subject based question ("do you have any materials on..."). In both cases he noticed that there were fewer and fewer questions being asked at the reference desk, although the ones he gets are becoming much more intense in scope and depth. I have seen this play out at the Penrose Library as well as in the literature. One that comes to mind was written about the Information Commons at the University of Indiana Bloomington, by Dallis and Walters (Reference Services Review, 34(2), 2006).

There are a number of explanations for this kind of shift in behavior, although the first that came up in conversation centered around the course reserves, both online and in hard copy, including sound recording. Part of the supposition is that because there are more and more items being put on reserve, undergraduates, particularly the underclassmen, spend less time looking for materials, and more time working with them. The hypothetical result being that students know the material better, but know the library less. All said and done, this might not be an all bad thing, whether you're a fan of "save the time of the reader" or "user-centered design." Interesting how these things never go away. Even if Raganathan was a a fan of open stacks and the course reserves are "closed," they have the same spirit behind them: convenience. Since I'm name dropping, both speak to Mann's "principle of least effort". It seems like more of the questions are coming from upperclassmen and graduate students, whose research is a little less structured.

The other thing that I noticed is that because of the desk layout, the computer terminals for the students are right next to the circulation side of the desk, which is normally staffed by student workers (although sometimes librarians will step in) as opposed to the side that the reference desk is located on (which is at the entrance). I suppose that the underlying logic of the physical arrangement is that people who come in with a question will go to the reference desk, but it seems like more questions are being generated when people interact with the library's resources, all of which are past it, with the circulation side of the desk in between them. Unfortunately, the obvious solution to the problem of switching the sides is prohibited by the physical arrangement of internet jacks, printers, space, and wiring issues. I wonder if less differentiation between the desks and more between the actual workers would be a solution.

Another aspect has to do with the timing of the academic cycle. Since CU is on semesters, there are only a few weeks left, so most of the major research has been done already. According to the staffer, there might be a little pick-up in reference as the semester closes, when last-minute research and clarifications are being followed through. It seems as though there is a similar lull at Penrose, where the cycles are shorter because of the quarter schedule.

In talking with Laurie, she mentioned how many papers she had written in library school, while I think more so than papers, I have given presentations for most classes. I wonder if presentations (and group work) are somewhat of a standard at DU. To a certain extent, that concerns me. I agree with Thomas Mann's assertion that higher levels of information can only be achieved by sustained study and attention, which the process of writing papers provides. Irony isn't escaping me on this one, as I type into my blog.

Speaking of Blogs:

My class on interent sources went pretty well, despite my running late and running into traffic on 36. It really made me resepect professors. I was feeling a bit tired, and I think that because of that the class suffered somewhat, thanks to my sedated delivery. That being said, it was nice to see how interesting topics came from unexpected places. The section on online repositories of digital sheet music brought out a discussion on copyright, and the section on music resource pages illustrated the importance of website style and currency (see IU's music web resources list), from the section on evaluating web resources (see Cornell University's page on evaluating web resources). It really made me think about how important it is for function to be directly related to style, because in the age of web 2.0, static webpages look much worse for the wear, to the point that even good resources are easily overlooked. I think that some of the problem falls under the "judging a book by its' cover," but some of it also comes from failure of good design. Here's a good blog post which summarizes the issue from the infotangle blog. A more extensive discussion can be found in books like Peter Moreville's Ambient Findability.

Here's the text of the handout for that class:

Using the World Wide Web for Music Research
Music 5708

Evaluating Web Resources:
Cornell Library’s Evaluating Web Resources
http://www.library.cornell.edu/t/help/res_strategy/evaluating/evaluate.html

Web-based Reference Tools:
New Grove Online
Music Index
RILM Abstracts
IIMP

Digital Content Sites:

CU Digital Sheet Music Collection

http://ucblibraries.colorado.edu/music/smp/index.html

MLA Listing of Sheet Music Collections

http://www.lib.duke.edu/music/sheetmusic/collections.html

LC’s American Memory

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem

Public Domain Music

http://www.pdinfo.com