First, it helps that we get to see students almost every semester through our revolutionary information literacy program spearheaded by Sarah Cohen. Students get used to seeing a librarian and realize that we can help them. Instruction is very closely tied to reference. Re-evaluate what and how much you are doing in the classroom. Don’t just tell students there are databases available to them. Tell them WHY Google is not always the best place to get information. Make the case for libraries.

Second, professors give assignments that require library resources or that students must talk to a librarian. I think this one would be the most beneficial for anyone in increasing their reference usage. Forcing students to use the library is a great way to help them try it out and see how beneficial using the library can be. I constantly see students amazed at how useful the library is after they get over the idea that “it’s all on Google.” One student even found that using the library was quicker than searching online because they didn’t have to wade through all the “useless websites.” So, talk to your professors. Ask them to build the library into their assignments. They’ll be rewarded with better student work and you’ll be rewarded with a busy reference desk. I know we are.

Finally, we record reference statistics differently from other libriaries I have worked at. Instead of doing the tally method we are using Zoho Creator to easily create a form to record every reference encounter. This form collects all the data and you can export it easily into an Excel spreadsheet. This makes data collection simple, but it also allows you to see what stories your numbers are telling.

I made up a graph With the help of my good bud Chris Campion I made up a a graph in Excel using our data and we can see that a good percentage of our questions are coming through chat. You can also look at other things like “when are the bulk of your questions coming in?” Are you getting a lot of questions later at night? Perhaps you might want to discuss changing your reference hours to support this trend in the data.

These are just a few ideas, but they seem to be working for us. What’s working at your library, or what isn’t working?

We were doing some Q&A towards the end of the session, when the conversation surprisingly turned to libraries and library science in general. They were asking me about my profession. These were things like, “what do you enjoy most about librarianship,” “is there a secret librarian handshake,” “and are libraries going to be around in a hundred years?” I gave them my honest opinion on these things, and they were pretty easy questions since we as librarians think about them all the time (except we probably do need a secret handshake).

But towards the end, the professor brought up a point about libraries as a physical space. He talked about how if it was possible to download all the experiences, thoughts, emotions, etc. of one human being, we’ll call him Mr. Jones, and upload it onto a computer or terminal, then someone could interact with that personality composed of all those experiences, but not the physical individual. It was his contention that the experience of Mr. Jones’ friends, relatives and especially romantic partners would be severely diminished  if they could only interact with this bodiless personality and not a physical person.

He then compared this to the library as a physical space. Of course we have all this information, and much of it can be accessed online, but again his contention was that your experience and your college career would be diminished if you were not able to interact physically with the library.

It was at this point that a sharp student asked if he was comparing the library to sex. His response? “Going to the library is the most fun you can have with you clothes on” (a la Jerry Della Femina).

I really respect this professor and love his enthusiasm and excitement about the library. But I also really found this philosophical discussion of the library very enlightening.

The library is not just a collection of information. In our Western society we are often very dualistic, separating the mind and body. But a human is not just the sum of his thoughts and experiences. It is also his physical pleasures, scars, and smells. So to is the library not just the information inside it, but the quiet study nooks, the frantic computer lab the week before finals and the interactions with friends, professors, and librarians. You’re missing an important part of college if you haven’t been to the library.

To teach a class you first need to figure out what you want the students to be able to do after the class is over.  In other words you must design learning outcomes.  Secondly, you have to figure out how you are going to teach them these skills.  Finally you have to make them prove it.  This means you need to design an activity or worksheet or some other method of seeing whether they can actually do what you want them to.  These steps are not easy either.  They take a lot of thought and creativity.  On top of that you actually have to get up “on stage” and teach them these things, making sure they get it.  Teachers are pretty talented people.