Over the next several days you may notice that there will be empty shelves in the library's reference collection on the main floor and you may ask, "So, what's up with the space?"
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| Reference shelves after evaluation |
The reference collection is a part of the library that is meant to meet quick information needs, answering questions like :
- In which industries were more businesses created in Washington in 2012? (According to the 2014 Washington State Almanac: construction, manufacturing, wholesale trade [p. 8].)
- What the heck is authentic assessment? (According to the The Greenwood Dictionary of Education, it is a form of evaluating student work that does not use standardized tests [p. 33].)
- Who were those guys that were supposed to spy on Hamlet? (According to The Oxford Companion to Shakespeare, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern [p. 180].)
By it's nature, the reference collection changes more rapidly than the library's main collection on the upper floor. Right now the reference collection is being evaluated and compacted. We have been working with the Library Faculty Committee in this project.
This evaluation is taking place for two reasons:
- The library multimedia center is being converted into a multimedia lab for video and audio production. To have enough room, the audio and video materials need to be moved out of the room and we have decided to move them over to the reference area.
- The collection needs to be periodically evaluated and updated and it has been a number of years since this has happened. Evaluation allows librarians examine the collection up close and pull or shift those items that no longer fit the needs of reference users. In addition, "leaner" and "tighter" reference collections actually allow librarians to better serve the needs of users.
Some of the materials will be removed from the collection, but many will actually be designated for shifting up into the main collection on the upper floor. We anticipate that up to 70% of the collection with be left in the
collection or moved upstairs.
Additionally, much reference research is actually being done via electronic tools now. In the past 15 years, the print reference collection has 5,040 recorded uses. (Because reference books are used within the library, their use counts are often low. Thus, this number may not accurately reflect how frequently these items have been used.) By contrast, the electronic reference items have seen an increase in use. In just the last two years, the library's two primary electronic reference tools, Gale Virtual Reference Library and Oxford Reference Premium, have been accessed 3,218 times.
