Twelve scholarly papers and eighteen abstracts comprise the content of the nineteenth annual Brick & Click Libraries Conference, held annually at Northwest Missouri State University in Maryville, Missouri. The proceedings, authored by academic librarians and presented at the conference, portray the contemporary and future face of…

Librarians who provide virtual reference services often perceive that their patrons self-identify to some degree, even when transactions are anonymous. They also develop a sense of patrons' greatest research-related needs over time. In this article, two librarians analyze two years' worth of virtual reference transcripts to determine what patrons…

The first comprehensive national survey of all academic libraries in the United States which were conducting chat reference service was carried out to determine: what practices were being used to prepare personnel for chat reference service, what competencies were being taught, how and why training practices may have changed over time, and what…

A survey of New Zealand academic subject/reference librarians was conducted in mid-2011 to identify the most highly valued knowledge, skills and competencies of reference librarians working in libraries in the tertiary sector. The project was part of an international collaborative project involving 13 countries. The results from New Zealand show…

In this article, I imagine a library that prioritizes teaching users how to find, evaluate, and use information over the traditional library public service activities of collection development, access to materials, and reference services. If I ran the library, all services would support end-user education. (Contains 1 graph and 1 note.)

This study documents the number and types of referrals to librarians by a paraprofessional staff member at an academic reference desk. Results indicate that over two semesters, only 7.4% of the reference desk transactions required referral to a librarian. From the results of this and other studies, the authors explore the expanded use of trained…

Reference transactions in academic libraries have been on the decline since mid-1990. The Academic Library Survey from the National Center for Education Statistics shows an average drop of 25% in reference use from 1996-2004 with higher numbers at some institutions such as the University of Maryland which plummeted 47% (Martell, 2008). The…

A survey of Australian academic reference librarians was conducted as part of an international collaboration seeking to identify the most important knowledge, skills and attributes now and for the next ten years. Librarians working in or managing reference-related services at university and vocational education and training institutions…

The Mississippi State University Libraries' Virtual Reference Service collected statistics about virtual reference usage. Analysis of the data collected by an entry survey from chat and e-mail transactions provided librarians with concrete information about what patron groups were the highest and lowest users of virtual reference services. These…

In 2012, "U.S. News & World Report" ranked nineteen institutions on its Up-and-Coming national universities list. The universities were put on the list based on rankings from experts in higher education administration. The experts were asked to identify institutions that had implemented innovative ideas in the areas of academics,…

The growing trends of tiered reference, roving librarians, and virtual reference offer academic libraries several options for providing the most effective reference service. Increased enrollment at community colleges has prompted a reconsideration of how librarians can balance reference, teaching, and faculty responsibilities. This article…

The READ Scale (Reference Effort Assessment Data) is a six-point scale tool for recording qualitative statistics by placing an emphasis on recording effort, knowledge, skills, and teaching used by staff during a reference transaction. Institutional research grants enabled the authors to conduct a national study of the READ Scale at 14 diverse…

In an era of exploding online enrollment and tight budgets, Central Piedmont Community College (CPCC) struggles to meet the needs of online students. CPCC librarians went one step towards solving that problem in 2009-2010 by launching an embedded librarian program. CPCC's program became so successful that it struggled to meet demand. In 2013, CPCC…

In January 2008, the Belk Library & Information Commons at Appalachian State University combined the Access Services staff members of the Circulation and Lower Level Service Desks with the Reference and Instruction team as part of a library-wide reorganization effort. The new team balanced what had been a staff-dominated Access Services team…

This study analyzes job advertisements to identify the contemporary development of academic reference librarianship in the United States. Results show that more job openings, higher educational backgrounds, more duties & responsibilities, and variety of titles were assigned to academic reference librarian positions from 1966 through 2009.…