The Desk and beyond: Next Generation Reference Services

Citation

Parry, F. (2010), "The Desk and beyond: Next Generation Reference Services", Library Hi Tech, Vol. 28 No. 2, pp. 334-335. https://doi.org/10.1108/07378831011047802

This is a book which attempts to discover what the “desk” means in a library in the twenty‐first century. The editors could have called it the “information desk” or “reference desk”, but then the confusion surrounding the very name is indicative of the confusion of the desk's role. Should there be a fixed, physical desk at all, or should it exist in cyberspace only? If the desk exists, what skills do the staff need, and who staffs the desk anyway – IT specialists, student volunteers, librarians? The first chapter comes to grips with some of these questions by surveying over 100 mainly academic libraries to discover what the more modern phrase “learning commons” means in practice – the services offered and the staff who administer them, the hopes and fears for the future. It is a useful scene‐setter based as it is on a wide range of views and evidence‐based practice.

Several chapters deal with reference services which reach beyond the physical space in the library. These includes outreach programmes and research consultancies which visit patrons where they work or where the feel is most appropriate. It also includes operating in cyberspace ‐ IM chat reference services, social networking tools such as Facebook, MySpace, blogs, wikis and other collaborative reference services. In essence, the message is to go to where the patrons are and interact more imaginatively using the new technologies which are arriving almost daily. There is a fair amount of enthusiasm for operating in new environments to provide an enhanced service, but there is less discussion of some of the drawbacks. For instance, libraries need to be able to invest a fair amount of staff time and training to be able to commit to these programmes, some of which may turn out to be ephemeral or of passing interest and run into the danger of blurring social and professional interests and boundaries. Providing a modern reference service in such circumstances requires very careful consideration and planning.

Other chapters are concerned with the more traditional topic of preparing for the reference interview, though with a distinctly non‐traditional approach. I must admit that my eyes began to glaze over when the words “clients” and “therapists” popped up in the chapter on solution‐focused reference. This revisits the 1954 work of David K. Maxfield on “counselor librarians”. Nonetheless, if you can get through the psychotherapy theory, there are many valid points to be gained from reading this, not least the lessons to be learned from moving from “interrogation” to “dialogue” within a reference interview. Later on, another innovative chapter looks at adapting library services to the needs of gamers, proposing the theory that incorporating “gaming principles into … library services … can enhance the library experience for their patrons”. It is certainly a novel theory, and the author makes several concrete suggestions about how the library can go some way towards creating the kind of intuitive, immersive environments with which gamers would be familiar. The chapter on personalising the library via research consultation also touches on the subject building trust between the academic research community and the library and the importance of face‐to‐face contact in developing this outreach. This last point is something I wish had been discussed more in this collection. In the headlong rush to communicate with patrons electronically, it is sometimes forgotten that the most effective communication is simply the face‐to‐face sessions between librarians and clients where a skilled librarian can tease out the best response to a reference enquiry.

This is an interesting collection of essays and is well worth a read.