A Future Space For Reference Services? An Inspiration From GALE

July 11, 2011, 5:38 pm

Gale might be in the reference resources business, but after seeing their booth at ALA I’m thinking they should try their hand at reference assistance delivery space. I found their booth very inspiring—and they might just have the key to unlocking the “future of the reference desk.”

Here are a few images I snapped on my phone and I offer a conceptual drawing.

The Next-Gen Reference Experience
Imagine something like this. The space is branded somehow so that users know that this is the research help hub. A patron sits down at one of the couches, essentially inviting a librarian or library staff to approach him. The librarian hands the student a laptop/tablet and they get to work on the topic. When finished, the patron takes the laptop/tablet with him, after the librarian uses a wireless device to check it out. And/Or if the question is more involved or if the patron doesn’t want to sit on couch, they can move over to one of the stand-and-help stations around the periphery. A patron could then dock the laptop and use a larger screen. Or the pair could move over to a small table and spread out materials. Additionally, there are some group help stations and a small workshop / instruction space.

We might include writing and math tutors, as well as a multimedia designer in the rotation to assist patrons. This would expand our portfolio beyond just “help with library materials” and embed a more holistic identity to our assistance services. We can help with all your assignments– not just with finding books & journal articles. Over and over again my research findings suggest that undergraduates typically associate librarians with finding and managing books in the building– this type of setting could change that perspective by presenting librarians as more than book-people.

Apple Store Style
I found the Gale booth aesthetics to be very Apple-esque (open and dynamic like this) and immediately thought that this might be a comfortable and personalized way to deliver reference services. This would move us away from the bank teller desk approach that we use now and make it more casual and inviting, like getting help in your living room.

While there is debate about the future of the reference desk, I think the bigger question is: what is the best environment to provide a personalized assistance experience?

If I were to rebuild the reference desk from scratch today, this is the direction I’d be leaning. Some in our profession might argue that we don’t need librarians on the desk anymore—and I’d agree—I say get rid of the desk and replace it with a more dynamic and modern (and comfortable) research service center.

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johnmeier1

An intriguing idea and well formulated. In general I think that academic libraries sit at the intersection of customer service and education, so in many ways we are the most “user friendly” of university services.
denisebauer

Your essay made me laugh – and you make a good point. Particularly with the “graying” of senior administration and the anticipated need for so many new administrators to step up into these roles in the coming years, there does need to be more attainable and realistic means of “training” academic administrators.
ufenglish

I sympathize with your desire to get into a focused environment that doesn’t feel like a Dilbert nightmare. But I have to say, in a period of austerity for faculty and high costs for students, “more cruises for administrators” may not be the most politic rallying cry.
flowersfly

Most everyone in higher education administration knows about the big training venues for continuing education. You make a good point. Now,i feel free to share my idea or webstie: http://www.northfaceinline.us with the folks at online. Thanks.
edwoof

“It [corporitzation of higher education] is alienating, sterile, and ultimately masculine.”

The author needs to explain this statement. What is masculine about sterility? It sounds as though she has an issue with maleness. If the author wished to attribute traditional gender roles to academia, I could see that universities as institions are both feminine in that they are nuturing as well as masculine in that they offer protection in order that students may prepare for a life outside of academia. But I do not believe that assigning gender roles in this case is particularly helpful.

I also do not understand the intent of the article other than a vague wistfulness and a desire not to “view faculty as labor and students as customers” without discussing the actual forces which have shaped the current consumer model and which include obscenely high tuition and correspondingly high student debt, the rise of for-profit colleges, the extreme pressure from tax payers and state legislatures to cut costs at public universities, the rising admission rates, grade inflation, the continual erosion of tenure lines in all faculties and the increase in the employment of adjunct faculty. It is not that the deans and provosts at all universities just woke up one day and decided to adopt a (mis-named) corporate model (“consumer model” is preferable as there are many types of corporations including non-profits although Lord Chancellor Edward Thurlow (circa 1775) noted that corporations “have neither bodies to be punished not sould to be condemned..”).

Also, the author states that the problem occurs when “we view faculty as labor and students as customers…” as if we have a choice. The consumer model has already been adapted. We have student-as-customer reviews of courses, grade inflation and all the rest. It’s fairly clear that if you don’t act within the given system, your services will no longer be required.