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Library Services

Reference Services in Libraries

Librarians and information science professionals provide a vital service to patrons by navigating them through a myriad of information and knowledge sources available. Compounding this challenge is the exponential growth of online information sources and the often confusing nature of software used for accessing these online resources. Only by interviewing patrons and getting a very clear idea of what their needs are can a library patron attain a high level of performance over time. The intent of this analysis is to evaluate how librarians and information science professionals can more effectively serve patrons by interviewing them about their information needs.

Serving Patrons By Researching Their Needs

The ability to quickly determine the information needs and wants of a patron is critical for any librarian and information science to excel in their role. The first step in accomplishing a higher level of performance and accuracy in terms of fulfilling patron requests for information is understanding the framework of their information needs. In research terms this is often referred to as creating a taxonomy of patron needs, with the recognition that each patron's needs will vary significantly from each other.

To test this idea, patrons of the library were interviewed to see which subject areas are most critical to their research and academic needs. Once a list of these topics was created, patrons were asked to prioritize each information need and then define which specific aspects of the subject area they were most interested in learning about. Once completed, each patron was asked to verify the taxonomy for accuracy and thoroughness.

Next, query options for databases that are relevant to each patron's taxonomy were designed and the patron's e-mail address entered in to library systems so they would get automated alerts of new content of interest. Using this taxonomy-based approach to interviewing patrons helped to trim back many of the unnecessary data and searches that wasted time in the past.

Next, each patron was interviewed to see how offline and online information systems could be better aligned to their needs. The most common request of patrons was the ability to better manage alerts and queries from their smart phones and tablets over campus Wi-Fi networks. The library today does not have an Apple iOS application or one for Google Android, yet it is clear from interviewing patrons this would be very valuable and popular.