Introduction
This was the second complete year for the combined reference desk operation in the new area on 1-East. Most of the work of the reference staff was routine, in the sense that the immediate demands of the merger and move are no longer driving events. This service point continued to assist library users with Government Documents and with reference materials across the sciences, social sciences and humanities.
Main Library Reference Unit and Desk Staff
Library staff with primary reporting responsibilities in the "official" Main Library Reference unit during some or all of 2000-2001 were: Sheila Bryant, Kate Corby, Joycelan Dick, Diane Donham, Anita Ezzo, Jon Harrison, Quintella Jackson, Mary Murphy, Julia Perez, Steven Sowards, Arlene Weismantel, and Amy Tracy Wells. Most of the librarians also had secondary assignments involving collection development and liaison duties.
Several appointments, resignations or changes in assignment altered the list of primary Main Library Reference unit personnel during the year. In November, the Health Team became the primary unit for Arlene Weismantel (who moved to full-time, regular appointment as of August 1) and Sheila Bryant: both continued to work shifts at the 1-East desk. Mary Murphy resigned to take a position at the Muskegon Public Library effective November 30, 2000. Amy Tracy Wells began an appointment at MSU on August 16, 2000: she was assigned to Reference effective January 10, 2001. Jon Harrison became Social Sciences Collection Coordinator effective February 15, 2001, while continuing to work at the reference desk. Diane Donham resigned to take a position with the Library of Michigan as of April 30, 2001.
1-East Reference Desk Staffing and Training
As in past years, most of the library staff working regular reference shifts had primary assignments with other units in the MSU Libraries.
The 1-East desk functioned as a joint service point with the Government Documents unit. Staff from Documents working on the desk were Laura Dickson, Becky Fox, Shawn Nicholson, Debbi Schaubman, and Kathleen Weessies (appointed as a librarian at MSU on July 1, 2000).
Personnel from other units and divisions providing Reference Desk service included Michael Lorenzen and Courtney Young and from Library Instruction; Lisa Robinson from DSC; Jane Arnold, Leslie Behm (with a half-time assignment in Reference beginning in September 2000), Talbott Huey, Judy Matthews, Terri Tickle Miller, and Terrie Wilson (appointed as a librarian at MSU on July 1, 2000) from Collections and the branches; and Heidi Frank and Barb Stephon from Technical Services.
Several veterans were reassigned to new duties and consequently no longer worked shifts at the 1-East desk: Terry Link as of September 2000 (an EPA grant); Mike Unsworth as of Summer 2000 (Canadian Documents); John Coffey as of August 2000 (Clinical Library); and Julia Perez as of November 2000 (LDLS; at that time, Julia also passed responsibility for putting together the monthly desk schedule to Jon Harrison but continued to coordinate the selection of science reference books).
Reference staff meetings took place weekly during the school year and in alternate weeks during the summer. Agendas and draft minutes were distributed by e-mail, and final minutes were posted to a Public Folder in Outlook or Exchange, replacing the “Library Staff Information Bulletin Board” on the Web. These meetings included "First Hour" self-training sessions (shifted from "Second Hour" to make sure that over-long discussions did not cut into training). During the year, thirty-six different library staff members (not all from reference) conducted training sessions on forty different topics, including tours and presentations. Joycelan Dick and Courtney Young were responsible for developing the training schedule for most of the year; in May 2001 Leslie Behm and Michael Lorenzen took over that task.
Prominent issues and problems discussed this year by the reference desk staff included:
Reference Resources and Collections
Notable changes affecting available reference resources included:
It should be noted that Reference lost a valuable ally when Demetrios Ioannides resigned to take a job in the private sector, effective October 3, 2000.
Materials funds
Funds expended on reference materials rose this year. The separation into science and SSHR funds continued, with law, travel, college guides, funding center and career materials charged to the SSHR account. Note that in the following tables, "Spent" includes "Encumbered" dollars as well.
| Sciences | 1999-2000 |
2000-2001 |
||
| Budgeted | Spent | Budgeted | Spent | |
| Monographs | $8,764.00 |
$12,812.73 |
$12,681.00 |
$7,736.26 |
| New Serials | 923.34 |
1,970.00 |
2,891.25 |
7,790.25 |
| Blanket Orders | 0.00 |
0.00 |
0.00 |
0.00 |
| Total for new publications | 9,867.34 |
14,782.73 |
15,572.25 |
15,526.51 |
| Total for Reserves | 102,026.66 |
103,220.56 |
105,304.70 |
98,675.49 |
| Grand TOTAL | $111,117.00 |
$118,003.29 |
$120,876.95 |
$114,202.00 |
| Social Sciences/Humanities | 1999-2000 |
2000-2001 |
||
| Budgeted | Spent | Budgeted | Spent | |
| Monographs | $49,103.00 |
$44,831.27 |
$51,440.00 |
$37,118.38 |
| New Serials | 6,395.19 |
3,854.25 |
4,572.00 |
19,677.91 |
| Blanket Orders | 2,500.00 |
3,133.17 |
2,500.00 |
1,587.32 |
| Total for new publications | 57,998.19 |
51,818.69 |
58,512.00 |
58,383.62 |
| Total for Reserves | 262,961.76 |
257,224.89 |
239,948.95 |
262,069.81 |
| Grand TOTAL | $320,959.95 |
$309,043.58 |
$298,460.95 |
$320,453.43 |
The combined total across both areas gives a better overall sense of the materials resources assigned to Reference, and the figures for Spent (including Encumbered) funds give a better picture than the Budgeted estimates. In the end, we spent a little more this year than last year.
| Combined | 1999-2000 |
2000-2001 |
||
| Budgeted | Spent | Budgeted | Spent | |
| Sciences | $111,117.00 | $118,003.29 | $120,876.95 | $114,202.00 |
| Soc Sci/Hum | $320,959.95 | $309,043.58 | $298,460.95 | $320,453.43 |
| TOTAL | $432,076.95 | $427,046.87 | $419,337.90 | $434,655.43 |
Electronic Resources
In addition, the reference budget has a separate line for Electronic Resources. After budgeting $755,011.32 for that line in 1999-2000 and spending/encumbering $853,473.27, the Libraries budgeted $924,196.97 in 2000-2001 and actually spent/encumbered $873,374.13. In other words, actual expenditure went up by nearly $20,000.
Binding
Binding funds were budgeted and spent /encumbered as follows (figures for 1998-99 are a combination of Science and SSHR funds):
1998-1999 |
1999-2000 |
2000-2001 |
||||
| Budgeted | Spent | Budgeted | Spent | Budgeted | Spent | |
| Binding funds | $3,500.00 | $1,664.26 | $4,150.00 | $1,988.14 | $2,000.00 | $1,812.40 |
Reference Desk Services
Reference desk service was available 80 hours per week in the Main Library during the fall and spring semesters: Mon.-Thu. 8:00 am-10:00 pm, Fri. 8:00 am-5:00 pm, Sat. 12:00 noon-5:00 pm, and Sun. 12:00 noon-10:00 pm. In the less busy summer months, the desk closed an hour early on Sun.-Thu. evenings, at 9:00 pm. The desk was normally double-staffed. While we triple-staffed some peak shifts, this will be the last year for regular triple-staffing: the consensus of the desk staff was that it was no longer needed. Staff time saved can be devoted to future "virtual reference" service.
The number of questions tallied at the main library reference desk declined, continuing a trend (in 1998-99, the combined total for the separate Science and Gov Docs/SSHR desk was 43,112). These figures do not include questions answered in the Information Commons.
| 1-East Desk traffic | 1999-2000 | 2000-2001 |
| July/August | 4,318 |
2,714 |
| Fall term (Sept-Dec) | 18,270 |
14,948 |
| Spring term (Jan-April) | 14,101 |
11,826 |
| May/June | 2,753 |
2,269 |
| TOTAL | 39,442 |
31,757 |
As the library becomes more successful at providing remote access and end-user capacity to search databases and fulltext files, fewer users find themselves near the desk on 1-East and in a position to ask a question at the desk. On the other hand, more and more questions are received by library staff through email sent to their offices. While we lack a scientific sample or a complete tally, we do have records of off-the-desk reference contacts from a number of staff, now extending over four years.
| Participation in off-the-desk tallies | 1997-1998 | 1998-1999 | 1999-2000 | 2000-2001 |
| Number of library staff submitting at least 6 monthly reports | 8 | 8 | 10 | 11 |
| Total number of monthly reports | 85 | 78 | 89 | 108 |
| Total tallied off-the-desk contacts of all kinds | 1,544 | 1,842 | 3,002 | 2,920 |
| Average off-the-desk contacts per staff members | 193 | 230 | 300 | 265 |
| Average off-the-desk tallies per staff member per month | 18.2 | 23.6 | 33.7 | 27.0 |
The lion's share of these off-the-desk contacts come in by email, while telephone contacts have grown far less rapidly. Email contacts by staff participating in these surveys have grown to 225% of the number in 1997-98 (telephone contacts have grown to only 131%).
| Transactions by participating staff | 1997-1998 | 1998-1999 | 1999-2000 | 2000-2001 |
| Off-the-desk contacts by telephone or fax | 270 | 227 | 427 | 354 |
| Phone or fax contacts/staff member/month | 3.2 | 2.9 | 4.8 | 3.3 |
| Off-the-desk contacts by email | 874 | 1,233 | 1,950 | 1,966 |
| Email contacts/staff member/month | 10.3 | 15.8 | 21.9 | 18.2 |
In the figures that we report to ARL each year, we use these figures as the basis for an estimate of email based reference transactions by approximately thirty staff involved in public service and/or liaison (and excluding the branches). For 1999-2000, our estimate was 7,200 questions. For the year 2000-2001, we will report 7,600 questions to ARL.
The figure reflects more information about the distribution of email reference activity among reference staff. Based on our tallies, I believe that half of the group deals with a very small number of questions per month: less than 3. Another quarter answers twice as many, up to half a dozen questions per month. The remaining quarter is far more active: this group receives over 80% of the questions (think of the 80/20 rule). Also, the tallies for these participants rise significantly each year. The additional 400 questions in this year's estimate represents that increase: I believe that the most active seven or eight people saw about 6,200 questions this year, compared to 5,800 a year ago. When we have additional figures a year from now, we may be able to refine this some more.
Library Instruction
For figures about Reference unit participation in bibliographic instruction, see Michael Lorenzen's reports. Some staff also taught LCTTP classes about online access to library tools.
Reference Desk and Facilities
Public PC resources on 1-East (not including the Commons) continued to be:
The "Selected Resources" PCs allowed open access to specific Web sites, including library-licensed databases and dot-gov Web sites. While conforming to MSU network security policy, this allowed appropriate database access for visitors to the library's federal depository and other community users who lack university network accounts and thus cannot log onto PCs requiring authorization.
For staff use at the 1-East desk, there were five PCs: two in counter positions, two on consulting height tables (sometimes used to run standalong CD-ROMs that would not run smoothly on the Selected Resources PCs), and one to drive a laser printer and process e-mail traffic.
Printing options for the public included no-fee laser printing from the Selected Resources PCs (replacing no-charge dot-matrix printers which were overwhelmed by volume, producing long waits and poor quality), e-token laser printing, and laser printing through jobs directed to the main Copy Center on 2-West.
Student Labor
Student workers on the unit payroll handled reshelving, cleaning and tidying the public area on 1-East, shifting, processing books in and out of the collection, inputting statistics about desk traffic, and generally keeping up the reference collection and public areas. Student labor costs as budgeted and spent were:
| Student labor | 1999-2000 |
2000-2001 |
||
| Budgeted | Spent | Budgeted | Spent | |
| Regular account (54-55) | $38,800.00 |
$35,763.68 |
$36,281.00 |
$36,444.17 |
| Late night account (52-53) | 800.00 |
769.00 |
1,219.00 |
1,189.84 |
| TOTAL | $38,800.00 |
$36,532.68 |
$37,500.00 |
$37,634.01 |
Respectfully submitted,
Steven Sowards
Head, Main Library Reference
6 November 2001
URL=http://www.lib.msu.edu/sowards/mlr/annrep01.html
Page editor: Steven Sowards
Created 9 November 2001; modified 19 February 2003.
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