Reference Librarians use Electronic Sources Six Times More than Print Sources to Answer Patrons’ Questions

Lorie Andrea Kloda

摘要

A review of: Bradford, Jane T., Barbara Costello, and Robert Lenholt. “Reference Service in the Digital Age: An Analysis of Sources Used to Answer Reference Questions.” The Journal of Academic Librarianship 31.3 (May 2005): 263-72. Objective – To test the hypothesis that electronic sources are used by librarians more often than print sources to answer questions at the reference desk. Design – Use study. Setting – Small, private university in the United States. Subjects – Five full-time and two part-time librarians working at the reference desk for four months (two months in the fall of 2002, and two months in the spring of 2003). Methods – The study recorded every question asked by library patrons during the two study periods, with the exception of non-library related directional questions and hardware problems. For each question recorded, librarians, while working solo at the reference desk, paraphrased the question and recorded the source(s) used to answer each question. Although questions were recorded regardless of source – in person, via email, or by telephone – the medium in which each question was asked and answered was not recorded. For the first half of the study period (fall 2002 semester), librarians kept manual records that were subsequently transcribed into a spreadsheet by a student assistant. In the second half of the study period (spring 2003 semester), the librarians entered data directly into a spreadsheet. The study’s data monitor (who was also a study participant) was responsible for ensuring the integrity of the data and for assigning a category to each source. The source category ‘librarian’ was problematic in that it was unclear whether or not the actual source of the answer was the librarian or a source located by the librarian. After the first half of the study, the procedure was changed to require that a reference librarian was to label a source used to answer a question as ‘librarian’ only if the answer came from a librarian’s own knowledge, and if it did not require consultation of an outside source. Categories were generated on the fly, as the data monitor reviewed the recorded questions and sources. By the end of the study, 23 categories had emerged. While all sources for answers were categorized, questions themselves were not. During the second part of the study, the gender of the patron asking the question at the reference desk was also recorded. Main results –The results for the fall 2002 and spring 2003 semesters were similar. For the entire study period, librarians used a total of 3,487 sources to answer 2,491 questions. Sources fell into 23 different categories. The top 5 categories used to answer reference questions were databases (23.92%), librarians (23.6%), library catalogue (15.03%), internal Web page (12.27%), and reference books (9.38%). The top five categories accounted for 84.2% of all sources used. For 75% of the questions, librarians referred to a single source for an answer. Almost 60% of the sources used to answer questions were electronic. Of the internal Web pages used to answer questions, the library’s online journal title listings accounted for 76%. Reference books were used to answer questions in less than 10% of cases. Less than 2% of the library’s print reference collection (173 of 9,587 titles) was consulted to answer reference questions during the study period. The approximate 60:40 ratio of questions asked by female to male patrons corresponded to the university’s student body ratio. Conclusion – The results of this study confirm the researchers’ hypothesis that librarians use electronic sources with greater frequency than they use print sources to answer patrons’ reference questions. The surprising finding in this study is the proportion (approximately one quarter) of reference questions answered by the librarians themselves, without the need to consult an outside source, either print or electronic. The study suggests that a large proportion of the reference collection goes unused in answering patrons’ questions and that librarians often answer a question using only a single a source of information. A reshelving study analyzing use of the reference collection is underway to supplement the results of the current study.

机译：评论者：布拉德福德，简·T。，芭芭拉·科斯特洛和罗伯特·伦霍尔特。 “数字时代的参考服务：对用于回答参考问题的来源的分析。”学术图书馆杂志31.3（2005年5月）：263-72。目的–测试一个假设，即图书馆员比打印源更频繁地使用电子资源在咨询台回答问题。设计–使用研究。地点-美国的小型私立大学。主题–五名全职和两名兼职图书馆员在咨询台工作四个月（2002年秋季为两个月，2003年春季为两个月）。方法–研究记录了两个研究期间图书馆顾客提出的每个问题，但与图书馆无关的定向问题和硬件问题除外。对于记录的每个问题，馆员在咨询台独自工作时，都会对问题进行释义，并记录用于回答每个问题的来源。尽管记录问题的方式与来源无关（亲自，通过电子邮件或电话），但并未记录提出和回答每个问题的媒介。在研究期的前半部分（2002年秋季学期），图书馆员保留了手动记录，随后由助教将其记录到电子表格中。在研究期的下半年（2003年春季学期），图书馆员将数据直接输入电子表格中。研究的数据监控器（也是研究参与者）负责确保数据的完整性，并为每个来源分配一个类别。来源类别“图书馆员”存在问题，因为不清楚答案的实际来源是图书馆员还是图书馆员所在的来源。在研究的前半部分之后，对程序进行了更改，要求参考馆员将回答问题的来源标记为“馆员”，前提是答案来自馆员自己的知识，并且不需要咨询。外部来源。在数据监控器审查记录的问题和来源时，动态生成了类别。到研究结束时，已经出现了23个类别。虽然所有答案来源均已分类，但问题本身并未分类。在研究的第二部分中，还记录了在咨询台询问问题的顾客性别。主要结果– 2002年秋季和2003年春季学期的结果相似。在整个研究期间，馆员总共使用了3,487个资源来回答2,491个问题。来源分为23个不同类别。用于回答参考问题的前5个类别是数据库（23.92％），图书馆员（23.6％），图书馆目录（15.03％），内部网页（12.27％）和参考书（9.38％）。排名前五位的类别占所有使用来源的84.2％。对于75％的问题，图书馆员只提供了一个参考资料。用于回答问题的来源中，几乎有60％是电子的。在用于回答问题的内部网页中，图书馆的在线期刊标题列表占76％。在不到10％的案例中，参考书用于回答问题。在研究期间，仅就图书馆印刷参考资料集的不足2％（9,587种书目中的173种）进行了咨询。女顾客和男顾客提出的问题的比例大约为60:40，与大学的学生比例相对应。结论–这项研究的结果证实了研究人员的假设，即图书馆员使用电子资源的频率高于使用印刷资源来回答顾客的参考问题的频率。这项研究中令人惊讶的发现是图书馆员自己回答了参考问题的比例（大约四分之一），而无需咨询印刷或电子的外部资源。该研究表明，参考文献中有很大一部分未用于回答顾客的问题，而图书馆员通常仅使用一个信息源来回答问题。正在进行一项对参考文献使用情况的分析研究，以补充当前研究的结果。

Reference Librarians use Electronic Sources Six Times More than Print Sources to Answer Patrons’ Questions

摘要

著录项

相似文献

相关主题

期刊订阅