'Shaking the conceptual foundations,' too: Integrating research and technology support for the next generation of information service

College and Research Libraries

Volumn 61, Issue 4, 2000, Pages 300-311

  Ferguson, Chris ^a  

^a NONE

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 0034336750     PISSN: 00100870     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.5860/crl.61.4.300     Document Type: Article

References (30)

1. Jerry D. Campbell, "Shaking the Conceptual Foundations of Reference: A Perspective," Reference Services Review 20 (1992): 29-35. Campbell in turn has been the keynote speaker in a series of "Rethinking Reference Institutes" conducted by Ann Lipow through her Library Solutions Institute beginning in 1993.
2. James Govan, "Ascent or Decline? Some Thoughts on the Future of Academic Libraries," in The Future of the Academic Library. Proceedings of the Conference Held at the University of Wisconsin, September 1989, ed. E. P. Trani (Champaign, Ill.: Graduate School of Library and Information Science, Univ. of Illinois, 1989), 24-44.
3. Steve Coffman and Matthew L. Saxton, "Staffing the Reference Desk in the Largely Digital Library," Reference Librarian 66 (1999): 159-60.
4. Surveys of these efforts are available in Bernie Sloan, "Service Perspectives for the Digital Library: Remote Reference Services," available from http://www.lis.uiuc.edu/̃b-sloan/e-ref.html [April 2000]; Chris D. Ferguson and Charles A. Bunge, "The Shape of Services to Come: Values-based Reference Service for the Largely Digital Library," College & Research Libraries 58 (May 1997): 254-58, 260; and the University of Leicester's ELITE Project Site at http:// www.le.ac.uk/li/distance/eliteproject/index.htm (Apr. 2000).
5. Surveys of these efforts are available in Bernie Sloan, "Service Perspectives for the Digital Library: Remote Reference Services," available from http://www.lis.uiuc.edu/̃b-sloan/e-ref.html [April 2000]; Chris D. Ferguson and Charles A. Bunge, "The Shape of Services to Come: Values-based Reference Service for the Largely Digital Library," College & Research Libraries 58 (May 1997): 254-58, 260; and the University of Leicester's ELITE Project Site at http:// www.le.ac.uk/li/distance/eliteproject/index.htm (Apr. 2000).
6. Surveys of these efforts are available in Bernie Sloan, "Service Perspectives for the Digital Library: Remote Reference Services," available from http://www.lis.uiuc.edu/̃b-sloan/e-ref.html [April 2000]; Chris D. Ferguson and Charles A. Bunge, "The Shape of Services to Come: Values-based Reference Service for the Largely Digital Library," College & Research Libraries 58 (May 1997): 254-58, 260; and the University of Leicester's ELITE Project Site at http:// www.le.ac.uk/li/distance/eliteproject/index.htm (Apr. 2000).
7. Janice Koyama, "Http://digiref.scenarios.issues," Reference & User Services Quarterly 38, no. 1 (1998): 51.
8. The counterpoint of Ptolemaic and Copernican cosmologies when characterizing old and new paradigms is a common device. The only other application of this metaphor to reference service that the author is aware of is Pamela Snelson, "Understanding Remote Access and Its Importance for Reference Services," in Lynne M. Stuart and Dena H. Hutto, eds., The Changing Face of Reference (Greenwich: JAI Pr., 1996), 182-83.
9. For starters, see Eli M. Noam, "Electronics and the Dim Future of the University," Science 270 (Oct. 13, 1995): 24-26; for a call to arms, see Carla J. Stoffle et al, "Choosing Our Futures," College & Research Libraries 57 (May 1996): 213-25.
10. For starters, see Eli M. Noam, "Electronics and the Dim Future of the University," Science 270 (Oct. 13, 1995): 24-26; for a call to arms, see Carla J. Stoffle et al, "Choosing Our Futures," College & Research Libraries 57 (May 1996): 213-25.
11. The average number of reference transactions among ARL members decreased 5.8 percent from 1997 (201,248) to 1998 (189,524) alone and a total of 10 percent from 1995 (210,558) to 1998. The average number of circulation transactions for ARL libraries dropped 7 percent from 1996 (758,944) to 1998 (705,872). (http://www.arl.org/stats/arlstat/ [Apr. 20001).
12. Donald Beagle, "Conceptualizing an Information Commons," Journal of Academic Librarianship 25, no. 2 (Mar. 1999): 82-89.
13. Deborah Holmes-Wong et al, "If You Build It, They Will Come: Spaces, Values, and Services in the Digital Era," Library Administration & Management 11, no. 2 (spring 1997): 81-82.
14. Ferguson and Bunge, "The Shape of Services to Come."
15. What Bonnie A. Nardi and Vicki L. O'Day refer to in Information Ecologies: Using Technology with Heart (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Pr., 1999) as achieving humane application and purpose by using "technology with heart" in "local habitations" (preface).
16. A point to be made more fully below is that this does not mean high-level expert assistance is available around the clock. However, it does mean that intermediate-level assistance is always available for immediate gratification issues and to schedule appointments with, and otherwise refer to, experts.
17. http://www.landsend.com/ [Apr. 2000], which enables a customer to talk on the phone with a service agent while both are navigating the Web site and to shop on the site with another customer in a different location. These features are made possible in part by Webline software (http://www.webline.com). Webline also is being used in support of a collaborative, Web-based reference service under development by the Metropolitan Cooperative Library System (MCLS), a multitype library cooperative that serves more than fifty libraries in Los Angeles and Orange counties. When completed, the reference service will support remote users, operate twenty-four hours a day, include referrals to experts, and accommodate expansion to academic and school libraries.
18. This table, and much of the conceptualization behind it, was developed by Deborah Holmes-Wong, director of consulting services, Information Services Division, University of Southern California.
19. The literature on tiered reference service is reviewed in Soo Young Rieh, "Changing Reference Service Environment: A Review of Perspectives from Managers, Librarians, and Users," Journal of Academic Librarianship 25, no. 3 (May 1999): 179.
20. Clarify, a popular CRM system, is currently being used by the USC Customer Support Center, an information technology help desk, for IT service request intake, report tracking, and service delivery. USC librarians are experimenting with Clarify as a tool for collaborative reference service with the prospect of combining information and technology service support in the relatively near future. For more information on Clarify, visit http://www.clarify.com [Apr. 2000].
21. A model consonant with that of Steve Coffman, "Reference as Others Do It," American Libraries 30, no. 5 (May 1999): 54-56.
22. For examples of where some of these R&D investments might lead, see Deborah Holmes-Wong, "Richness vs. Reach: Using Technology to Overcome Economic Impediments to Reference Service," Reference Librarian 66 (1999): 201-11.
23. See note 14, above.
24. A term coined by Campbell, "Shaking the Conceptual Foundations."
25. Warren Bennis and Patricia W. Biederman, Organizing Genius: The Secrets of Creative Collaboration (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1997), frontispiece.
26. http://www.clunet.edu/iss/main.html [Apr. 2000].
27. http://www.usc.edu/isd [Apr. 2000].
28. http://www.anderson.ucla.edu/resources/acis/[Apr. 2000].
29. A theme that permeates Larry Hardesty, ed., Books, Bytes, and Bridges: Libraries and Computer Centers in Academic Institutions (Chicago: ALA, 2000). It emphasizes the variety of experience in the integration of computing and libraries while underscoring the need for such integration to arise from, and be shaped by, local values and aspirations.
30. Roy Tennant, "Determining Our Digital Destiny," American Libraries 31, no. 1 (Jan. 2000): 55.