Category: Fall 2012

The Catalog Use Committee hosted a Roundtable Discussion at ALA Annual in Anaheim. The group had planned out five distinct discussion topics for the meeting, with a moderator for each topic.

• Finding e-Resources: an idea sparked by this article in the September issue of the Journal of Academic Librarianship, “Usability Testing for E-Resource Discovery: How Students Find and Choose E-Resources Using Websites.” (p. 386 Fry, Amy).
• Catalog Accessibility: Access issues confronted by marginalized user groups such as the elderly, the disabled and children.
• Open Source Systems: Are they the future or a distraction?
• New Technology and the Mobile Landscape: How to make sense of new technology, platforms and devices.
• New Cataloging Standards and Resource Discovery: How will the new Sears subject headings and the RDA (Resource Description and Access) standards impact librarians and library users?

The Roundtable was scheduled for 4:00 PM on Saturday evening, and this may have impacted attendance. In the end, we had a dozen attendees and decided to meet together as one group. The smaller size of the group really helped draw in all of the participants. We had a very lively discussion, touching on each of the topic areas. We were able to devote more time to areas of particular interest to the group. The evaluations from the session were quite positive, with three-quarters rating the “overall experience” as “Very Good” and one quarter rating it as “Excellent.”

A focus for the Catalog Use Committee this coming year will be to look at the impact of Ebooks on the Library Catalog and best practices for displaying information about accessing and downloading on various devices, number of users, check out periods, along with other themes.

Peter Collins, Chair, 2011-2012
Colleen Seale, Chair, 2012-2013

The Communication & Teaching at the Point of Need Committee is just getting started so there is not much to report at this point. Our charge is “to offer programming, forums for discussions, and professional development opportunities focused on effective communication and teaching strategies, skills and technologies used during virtual or face-to-face reference interactions as well as other patron points-of-need. Areas of interest include, but are not limited to, the reference interview, ‘teachable moments’ during the reference interaction, and point-of-need videos or tutorials.”

As chair, I am looking forward to a fantastic year of leading the charge for this committee. Great reference skills are a true asset in any job but crucial for librarians.

Christine Sharbrough, Chair, 2012-2013

The Discussion Forums Coordinating Committee sponsored two really exciting Forums at Annual. “Rethinking Your Reference Collection,” moderated by Christy Caldwell, had twenty-three attendees and a very lively discussion about the use and fate of print reference collections. Participants were both academic and public librarians and discussion covered topics from decision-making to dealing with staff resistance.

Our second Forum, “E-Access and Patron Bleed,” moderated by Nicolette Sosulski, covered a common feature of virtual reference services—assisting patrons from anywhere in the world with topics your local collection may not support. Eight public and academic librarians found a lot of common ground in this forum, discussing how their services deal with the expectations of patrons far outside a geographical or topical area.

The Discussion Forums Coordinating Committee did not meet at ALA Annual 2012. The committee’s meeting for the annual conference was conducted via email in May when the winning forum proposals for the conference were chosen.

Crystal Lentz, Chair, 2012-2013

Work is progressing on coordinating a joint in-person workshop at ALA Midwinter 2013 with the Education and Professional Development for Reference Committee (EPDRC) and MARS Professional Development Committee. The workshop, “New Tech for Reference: From the Reference Interview to Roving Reference, Challenges, Benefits and Best Practices,” will be held Friday, January 25, 2013 from 1:00-5:00 PM at the University of Washington Odegaard Library, room 220. Topics include: Twitter, Facebook, and social media for reference, iPad/roving reference and using a Knowledge base, like LibAnswers, in reference.

Over the next year the EDPRC will be reviewing syllabi from ALA-accredited LIS programs to review what content is covered in reference courses. This will aid in future directions for the committee.

Kristen Mastel & Joseph Yue, Co-Chairs, 2012-2013

The committee hosted a lively discussion forum at 2012 Annual, “The How, What, and Why of Reference Evaluation and Assessment,” moderated by committee members Ellen Keith and Jason Kruse on Saturday, June 23. We had seating for fifty and at one point, all fifty seats were filled! In our discussion of who was doing assessment and what tools were being used, interesting paths were shared. Assessment in some libraries is formalized to the point of having an assessment librarian or director. Besides tools like READ and LibQual, some libraries are using the Secret Shopper approach; some have created a rubric to assess undergraduate papers where the undergraduate has visited a librarian. Decisions being made with assessment data inform staffing, services, and best use of time. It was a fascinating discussion and we thank all who attended!

Ellen Keith, Chair, 2011-2013

The first meeting of the Health and Medical Reference Committee was held at the all RSS meeting at ALA annual. The committee discussed new health and medical reference guidelines, the program that the committee will hold at ALA annual in Chicago in 2013, possible webinars that could be sponsored, and ways to communicate health reference issues with the broader librarian community. Karen Vargas brought several documents that would be helpful in the creation of the guidelines and an online page will be set up where people can post additional resources as a first step for the guidelines. Panelists were proposed for the 2013 program on serving the health information needs of a diverse community. The committee agreed that they would like to work on a quarterly series of RUSA webinars, beginning with one on basic resources for medical reference.

Karen Vargas, Chair 2012-2014

The inaugural meeting of the Job and Career Reference Committee was held July 2012 and the following members attended: Kate Oberg (co-chair), Jennifer Hootman, Gergana Kostova, Samantha Soucy, and Arlene Weismantel. The charge of the committee is: to offer programming, forums for discussions, and professional development opportunities focused on providing services and outreach related to patrons’ jobs and career needs, including library resources and reference assistance; guides, tutorials, and web content; programming, promotion, and instruction; and effective community partnerships.

Kate Oberg, Chair 2012-2013

he RSS Library Services to an Aging Population Committee sponsored a program at the ALA Annual Conference in Anaheim: “How Libraries Are Meeting the Evolving Needs of Baby Boomers and Older Adults.” Over 100 people attended the program, which included presentations by Susan Hildreth (IMLS), Jane Salisbury (Multnomah County Public Library), Tony Sarmiento (Senior Services America), and Suzanne Flint (California State Library). The program included a lively question and answer period, in which various viewpoints on serving these populations were expressed. If you would like slideshows from the program, you can view them online at TransformingLifeAfter5.org.

Jeff Kempe, Chair, 2011-2013

The Library Services to the Spanish Speaking Committee is planning a discussion during ALA 2013 Midwinter with a speaker from a public library to present their children’s program. The session would include a demonstration of their story hour, in addition to a discussion of the marketing of similar programs and why community health organizations seemed to be more popular to promote services such as story hours to the Spanish community. The presentation will be in English and Spanish.

Other activities for this year may include a review of the Guide to Services to the Spanish and another review article potential on case studies of Spanish speaking library use.

Stephen Marvin, Chair 2012-2013

The Management of Reference Committee met twice in Anaheim at ALA Annual. At the first meeting William Weare, Chair, reported that the Guidelines for Behavioral Performance of Reference and Information Service Providers revisions now needed approval from the Standards and Guidelines Committee and then final approval from the RSS Board. We discussed the Professional Competencies for Reference and User Services Librarians. At the most recent Midwinter meeting, the discussion session did find value in the Professional Competencies for Reference and User Services Librarians, but the Committee isn’t sure whether they were referring to the Guidelines for Behavioral Performance of Reference and Information Service Providers. Because of other problems the Committee sees with them we agreed that the original document should be sunsetted and this Committee should focus on updating the professional competencies for managing reference services and departments. William brought this plan to the RSS Board who approved it.

Sally Dockter, Chair 2012-2013

Our committee sponsored a workshop at ALA Annual, “Let’s Work Together: Integrating Social Media, Online Marketing and Outreach” with David Lee King, Marshall Breeding and Jennifer Robinson. Liane Taylor assisted with on-site organizing and reported that the workshop went well.

As mentioned in our prior update, for ALA Annual 2013 in Chicago, we are pleased to collaborate with two other committees to co-sponsor with the RSS Virtual Reference (VR) Committee Chair Don Boozer and MARS co-chair Ellen Filgo a proposed workshop: ” Slam the Boards: A Model for Marketing Through Action.” This would be presented by Bill Pardue and may include an expansion of the concept of “guerilla marketing techniques for VR” (as Don put so well). We may shift this workshop to be a webinar prior to June’s conference, with a discussion forum at the conference. We’ll know soon which way we’re taking this.

Marketing and PR are essential for the promotion of all library services. During our most recent RSS meeting (Friday, July 20), our committee began to look at two elements for our upcoming initiatives to work on with partner committees:

1. School sustainability (working with YARS)
2. Marketing in academic libraries (working with Research & Statistics)

We’re excited for an active new year!

Cathay Crosby, Chair 2011-2013

The RSS Organization & Planning Committee will be working closely with the RUSA Executive Committee over the next year to continue to improve the effectiveness of the section. We will also be following up on feedback we’ve received over the next year, updating the handbook, reviewing the bylaws, and creating several surveys.

Liane Taylor, Chair 2012-2013

The Research and Statistics Committee hosted the 18th Annual Reference Research Forum on Sunday, June 25. This year’s presenters were Lili Luo presenting “Best Practices of Text Reference Service: A Synergistic View,” Susan Gardner Archambault and Kenneth Simon presenting “Apples and Oranges: Lessons from a Usability Study of Two Library FAQ Web Sites,” and Alison Graber, Alison Hicks, Caroline Sinkinson, and Stephanie Alexander presenting “Research Assistance Interactions: Exploration of Users’ Motivation and Perceptions.” The committee also combed the literature to select exceptional articles detailing research in reference for the Reference Research Review: 2011.

Lynda Duke, Chair 2012-2013

The RSS/MARS Virtual Reference Services Committee held its official meeting at ALA Annual in Anaheim on Saturday, June 23, as part of the RSS All-Committee meeting. Twelve people were in attendance. One of the primary goals of the meeting was final planning for the committee’s sponsored program held on Saturday, June 23, at 1:30-3:30pm: “Are Virtual Reference Services Worth the Effort? What ROI Analysis and User Evaluations Tell Us”. The program was successful with approximately 150 people attending.

The committee is partnering with the RSS Marketing Committee on a webinar with Bill Pardue on marketing virtual reference services prior to Annual 2013. A discussion forum on this topic is planned for Annual 2013 itself with some sort of “bridge” activity between the webinar and Annual also being considered.

With the Virtual Reference Tutorial Subcommittee now having access to the RUSA Drupal installation, they are moving ahead with posting content. They have renamed the “Tutorial” the “Virtual Reference Companion” and aim to make it applicable to both managers/supervisors of VR service and frontline VR librarians. We are very excited about their progress and what they have planned.

We are also looking at a change in our official mission statement to fold in the charge of the now-disbanded Cooperative Reference Services Committee to “To identify and study issues relating to virtual reference services, and to evaluate and promote technological and service standards, guidelines, and ‘best practices’ for local and cooperative virtual reference services in all types of libraries.” We will be working with MARS and RSS to accomplish this.
Jason Coleman (Kansas State University Libraries and incoming Secretary of RSS) is moving ahead with the Survey Ad Hoc Group. He has recruited 2 people to help in designing and distributing the survey to determine the current state of virtual reference services.

The committee will be considering a Wikipedia edit-a-thon at either Midwinter and/or Annual. The committee plans to conduct their official midwinter meeting virtually with a time to be determined.

Don Boozer, Chair 2012-2013

After receiving training from Louise Gruenberg and with her assistance as well as that of Sean Bires and Andrea Hill, the VR Tutorial Subcommittee has begun populating the new resource in Drupal. The Planning Module now includes what used to be the Policies Module and is complete. The Training Module is currently in progress. The Resources section is a work in progress and we will add to this, as well as Tips & Best Practices and Activities, as we work on the modules. We will be reorganizing the Resources by topic, instead of alphabetically. We are awaiting permissions from ALA so we can populate the Welcome page.

The subcommittee continues to meet monthly and works in subgroups between meetings. We will be brainstorming about the Interview Skills Module next and a subgroup will take ideas from that meeting and implement into Drupal content. We plan to continue to work this way until the resource is complete, hopefully by next year’s annual conference.

We decided that “Virtual Reference Tutorial” does not fit the resource anymore and have renamed it the “Virtual Reference Companion: A Guide for VR Coordinators and Librarians”, or VRC for short.

The subcommittee would like your help in making this resource be as useful as possible. We will be sending out a survey in the near future to request tips & best practices, activities, and resources in regards to virtual reference that we may be able to use for the VRC. We will greatly appreciate your input.

Jared Hoppenfeld, Chair 2012-2013
Jennifer Lau-Bond, Chair 2011-2013

The newly minted Young Adult Reference Services (YARS) committee held a lively and informative discussion forum at 2012 Annual. The varied group of attendees points to the importance of reference services to this demographic. Fifteen participants talked about teen/young adult reference-related topics that ranged from assisting with research to marketing reference services to tweens, teens and undergrads (and the difficulties therein).

Plans are to continue offering discussion forums at conference and online while building name recognition and growing the committee’s membership from within YALSA and RSS.

Barbara Roos, YALSA
Emilie Smart, RSS
Co-Chairs, 2012-2013

RSS Review is the newsletter of the Reference Services Section of Reference and User Services Association (RUSA) of the American Library Association. Please send suggestions for future issues to Amy Rustic (aer123@psu.edu), editor.