What is the best model of reference service?

Library Trends, Fall, 2001 by David A. Tyckoson

TECHNOLOGY AND CHANGE

While technology is not the only factor that has changed in libraries, it is most certainly a driving force. In an interview published shortly before his death in 1985, Hugh Atkinson (Alley, 1985) predicted that technology would spark a revolution in reference service by the end of the twentieth century. His prediction came true, as reference librarians explored and adopted an ever-growing number of innovations for providing information content and delivery. Before the mid-1980s, information technology had been applied primarily to the technical and organizational sides of the library, mostly to develop large centralized catalogs and databases. As the power of computing became more decentralized and universally available, librarians used it to enhance the service models of the past.

In most reference departments, the first encounter with information technology was through mediated online database services such as Dialog and BRS. Such services became widely available in the mid-1970s through the mid-1980s. Since most libraries were unable to absorb the costs associated with this kind of database searching, patrons usually paid for some or all of the direct costs. Although the librarian worked with the patron to develop search strategies and review results, it was the librarian who understood the process and who had access to the technology. To reduce costs, the librarian actually did the work while the patron observed the process. In many ways, the economics of mediated searching dictated that librarians follow the liberal/maximum model of reference service.

From the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s, there followed a period of unmediated searching of some of those same databases on CD-ROM. Librarians purchased databases that members of their community could use; while the librarian still controlled the possible sources, it was up to the patron to perform the search and evaluate the results. Since the cost of the database did not depend on usage, a library could purchase the database and make it available to all community members at no charge. Not surprisingly, the total number of database searches rose dramatically. The librarian's role shifted from that of performing the search to that of teaching patrons how to do their own searches. The model of service shifted along with this change in technology, from the liberal/maximum model toward the conservative/minimum model.

What neither Atkinson nor any other visionary could predict was that information technology would be directly adopted by library users in their homes and offices. With the advent of the Internet in the 1990s, the public gained the ability to find information virtually anywhere. Information that once would have required retrieval by a reference librarian was now in the hands of anyone with a computer and a phone line.

As information technology became available in the household, new predictions began to emerge. Some said that the reference librarian--indeed, the entire library--would no longer be needed. Others felt that the new technology required a new means of delivering reference services, especially for those patrons who were not physically present in the library. These predictions often cited the declining statistics of reference use in libraries of all kinds in all areas of the nation. A variety of new models of reference and library service were proposed and touted as the way of the future. In addition, a number of commercial information services and dot.com companies attempted to take on some roles formerly reserved for the reference librarians. In a matter of a few short years, there arose a feeling that reference librarians had lost control over their chosen profession (Tyckoson, 1999).