Rethinking Reference for Academic Libraries

The rapid development of the Web and Web-based technologies has led to an ongoing redefinition of reference services in academic libraries. A growing diversity of users and the need and possibility for collaboration in delivering reference services bring additional pressures for change. At the same time, there are growing demands for libraries to show accountability and service value. All of these trends have impacted the field and will continue to shape reference and research services. And they have led to a need for increasingly specialized professional competencies and a literature to support them.

In order to reimagine reference service for twenty-first century learning environments, practitioners will need to understand several focal areas of emerging reference. In particular, collaboration with campus partners, diverse student populations, technological innovations, the need for assessment, and new professional competencies, present new challenges and opportunities for creating a twenty-first century learning environment. Librarians must not only understand, but also embrace these emerging reference practices. This edited volume, containing five sections and fourteen chapters, reviews the current state of reference services in academic libraries with an emphasis on innovative developments and future trends. The main theme that runs through the book is the urgent need for inventive, imaginative, and responsive reference and research services. Through literature reviews and case studies, this book provides professionals with a convenient compilation of timely issues and models at comparable institutions. As academic libraries shift from functioning primarily as collections repositories to serving as key players in discovery and knowledge creation, value-added services, such as reference, are even more central to libraries’ and universities’ changing missions.

Carrie Forbes, Associate Dean for Student and Scholar Services, heads the public service units of Penrose Library at the University of Denver including reference, circulation, interlibrary loan, and reserves. She serves as the library liaison/subject specialist to Education, University College, The Women's College, and the Writing Program. Carrie’s publications and presentations include a co-authored article in Reference Services Review onPenrose Library’s Research Center which was selected for the ALA RSS Reference Research Review 2010 annual bibliography, a co-authored book chapter on analyzing usage statistics of reference-based online guides, and a recent paper presentation at the Quantitative and Qualitative Methods in Libraries in Limerick, Ireland on measuring the effectiveness of research consultations in an academic libraries.

Jennifer Bowers is Associate Professor, Social Sciences Librarian, University of Denver. She is co-editor of the Scarecrow Press series, Literary Research: Strategies and Sources, and the co-author of three volumes in the series. She has also published the co-authored article, “The Research Center: Creating an Environment for Interactive Research Consultations” that was selected for the ALA RSS Reference Research Review 2010 annual bibliography, in addition to two book chapters about interdisciplinary research and teaching with digital archival materials.