The Reference Desk IS a dinosaur

People acquainted with me know that I am the convener of the METRO Science Librarians SIG. A few years ago I held a meeting to discuss management issues in science libraries. One statement made by David Stern (formerly with Yale University now with Brown University) was "The Reference Desk is a Dinosaur." There is both anecdotal and empirical data to support that.

I came to the desk at 5:00 PM and as of now (5:47 PM) one person asked for a pencil while a second just asked about photocopies. I hit bottom a few weeks ago when a student approached the desk and I ask "May I help you?" He answered "no, that's OK, I just want to put something in the garbage pail. This experience is typical these days.

A recent paper in Issues in Science and Technology Librarianship provide hard data that supports that there is no longer a need to have a professional librarian at a reference desk at all times any longer. The article states that 58% of all questions may be answered in less than 1 minute while 94% are answered in less than 5 minutes. It went on to say that 69% of all questions may be answered by a student worker while another 27% may be done by a reference generalist.

I think the problem is that upper managers who don't work at the reference desk cannot understand the frustration of reference librarians. In an informal discussion with a colleague I suggested that if one of the reference librarians leaves, he/she should be replaced by an information assistant who would refer difficult questions to subject specialist librarian.