College and Research Libraries By ROBERT W. CHRIST Recording Reference Service T HE PROBLEM of ev~luating reference work has been one of the constantly recurring subjects in our professional liter- ature. It has plagued administrators · and reference librarians of college, university, and public libraries. In view of the com- plexities introduced by such intangibles as the skill of the reference assistant and the importance of the requested information to . the inquirer, it is not surprising that a fre- quent conclusion to their consideration has be~n despair at ever reaching a satisfactory solution. Nor should it be discouraging. Few of the most valuable possessions or most important intellectual and cultural achievements can be weighed on a scale, measured in inches, or price-marked in dol- lars and cents to represent their true signifi- cance. Elizabeth Stone in 1942 presented a use- ful survey of recent "Methods of Evaluat- ing Reference Service," 1 and Mary N. Barto~ discu?sed stimulatingly the problem in the section on statistics in her paper on "Administrative Problems in Reference Work" at the library institute at the Uni~ versity of Chicago. 2 It was consid~red again most recently by Dorothy E. Cole in her "Some Characteristics of Reference Work." 3 But the imppssibility of an ob- jective measurement is implicit in the terms that have been used: eval.uate, interpret, judge. All of these suggest some use of subjective reasoning and thus there is at the start an irreconcilable conflict in terms. In this paper the word "evaluate" is discarded entirely, and far from offering a solution to the problem of measuring reference service, the metho~s currently used by the Refer- ence Department of the Grosvenor Library to "record" services to readers are merely described. There is no illusion that it is a perfect system; some features have been introduced within the past two years and are of course still subject to further study and change. But it has provided useful in- formation and may be suggestive to other libraries. Three records of reference service are kept at the Grosvenor Library: requests for . information by telephone, readers served in person, and unanswered requests whether received by telephone, in person, or by mail. (A fourth record, of books used from the reference collection, is also made by a simple classified ta!ly of the number of books shelved. Since this does not involve any direct service to the reader on the part of a reference librarian it needs no discussion here. All reference librarians will realize that such a tally is far from complete; prob- ably two out of three reference books are returned to the shelves by the reader and flo tally is possible. However, the proportion- ate accuracy from year to year will vary little and the record is thus a valid basis for making a comparison· of the amounf of use of the reference collection by readers.) Telephone Service The Grosvenor Library publicizes its 1 Library Journal 67 :2'96-98, Apr. r, 1942. 2 The Reference Function of the Library. UniversitSr telephone reference service and encourages of Chicago Press [c1943], p • .218-48. ·a College and Research Libraries 7! 45-5 1 , January v the use of this service for questions of fact. 1946. JANUARY} 1947 •23 ' I School assignments are refused, and inquir- ers are urged to come to the library if their questions require lengthy explanations or involve the interpretation of the information or data supplied. The telephon_e informa- tion desk, supplied with the customary small collection of quick reference tools, is located at the public catalog and the librarian on telephone duty also assists readers at the catalog. All telephone calls are recorded on a form which provides in addition to the date and the number of "the question, spaces for a brief statement of the information wanted, answer and its source, the number of books used to locate the answer, and the initials of the librarian who handled the call. The record sheets are examined daily by the head of the reference department to note trends in public interest, to check staff ef- ficiency, and to discover lacks in the telephone information, reference, or general book collections. It is also useful at the telephone desk itself, since questions fre- quently are repeated within two or three days. The number of questions and the number of books used are totaled daily, and the year's total appears in the statistical section of the annual report of the librarian. While one cannot "evaluate" reference service from this quantitative record, it is neverthe- less of some significance to .be able to point out a 295 per cent increase in telephone requests in the past five years, ·with the current year showing again a considerable increase over last. And it is a satisfaction to see in the past two years a decrease in the nudtber of books used from 3.27 to 2.57 per question asked. This telephone refc::renc~ record has been ~ept for many years in almost unchanged form, and the record sheets from 1924-30 and 1935 to date have recently been pre- sented to the libra y· of the Sch?ol of Li- brary Service of Columbia University where they are preserved as source material for library history not only of use to teach- ers of courses in reference work but also as a body of data suitable for investigation by students in the graduate program. Persons and Their Requests The second record is a tabulation of serv- ices rendered in terms of persons served and according to the nature of their requests. This record is kept at all service desks in- cluding the telephone information desk where the librarian assists readers in using the public catalogs ,and handles any questions which come direct to that desk and can be answered from the small book collection there. (Questions by telephone are not tallied on this record.) All questions are tallied as one of the six types of service de- fined below : I. Reade,rs Directed: directions to another part of the building, to a specific section of the reference collection, etc.,-purely "location" questions. 2. Readers Instructed: instruction or assist- ance in the use of tools such as the card cata- logs, periodical indexes, bibliographies, etc., or in filling out call slips, procedures in secur- ing books, etc. 3· Readers .Advised: advice on· the choice of books from the catalogs, probable sources of desired information in the reference collection, etc., where the librarian does not actually go to the books and locate the information. 4· Reference Questions: requests answered by the librarian alone or with the reader from materials in the reference collection. 5· Search Questions: requests answered by the librarian (or readers assisted in answering their own questions) only after consultation of indexes, periodicals, books from the gen- eral collection, or extended search in any part of the library. 6. Government Documents: readers helped in the location, . identification, or use of U .. ·government documents~any type of service inv~lving the reader-staff-documents relation- ship. • 24 · COLLEGE AND RESEARCI-l LIBRARIES This sixth type of service needs some clarification. The Grosvenor Library is a depository library for U.S. government do.cuments, which are arranged in a separat~ stack according to the Superintendent of Documents classification. Except for docu- ments selected for the reference collection they are uncataloged as well as unclassified, although cards are added to the catalogs for documents of exceptional importance and interest (Gen. Marshall's report, or the Bush report, Science: the Endless Frontier, for ins.tance), for valuable documents which the reader might ·not associate with the usual fields of government publ.ishing, and frequently for bibliographies. The printed indexes and catalogs for documents provide the means of locadng and identifying them. The Checklist . .. 1789-1909, Poore, Ames, and the Document Catalogues are in the reference room, as well as m~st of the de- partmental indexes, classified in the appro- priate subject sections.' The file of the Monthly Catalog is kept near the public card catalogs and the telephone information desk. It is, therefore, a rare exception for a reader to avail himself of documents with- out the help or instruction of a librarian'. But for the form of the material involved, tallies in. this class would usually fall into Type 2 or 5 above. Classification· Miss Stone has pointed out that "one of the greatest difficulties in recording refer- ence questions is inability to classify them and lack of time in which to enter them." 4 The placing of all services in one of these six classes, though they 'are neither entirely original nor wholly satisfactory, can usually be justified logically. The chief conflict is between Classes 2 (readers instructed) and 3 ( n:aders advised). Many questions, · ."' Loc. cit. JANUARY, 1947 however, are admit.tedly not entered at all because of pressure of work, and when a pumber of inquirers follow immediately one upon the other so.me are forgotten by the time there is an opportunity to get back to the desk. (The reference department is understaffed and one of the reasons for insti- tuting this record was a desire to analyze the types of service requested to see if any of . them could be handled in some other way.) It is the consensus of the members of the department that the over-all record is about 6o per cent complete, probably less than this in Types I and 2 which require only brief answers and are therefore quickly forgotten. 1• For the first full year in which this record was maintained, the ratio of requests for the six types of service is shown in the following table. Percentage Distribution of Readers Served by Reference Department According to Type of Service 1. Readers Directed 2. Readers Instructed 3. Readers Advised 4· Reference Questions 5. Search Questions 6. Government Documents 20.6 26.1 14-4 30-5 3·9 4·5 This record again, although 1t 1s of no help in "evaluating" ' reference services, has nevertheless revealed interesting facts and suggested certain ways by which it~ is hoped that the reader may be aided in helping him- self . . First, the comparatively small number of requests for government documents sug- gested that by treating them as a ~pecial collection, not appearing in the card cata- logs, too many people were unaware of the wealth of information lodged there. Since a few documents are cataloged, it is not improbable that some readers have assumed that ail could be located through the cata- logs and have therefore not asked about a do~ument collection. To bring this to the 25 attention of the reader, colored reference cards have been filed into the author catalog under the names of the principal publishing agencies and under important subject head..:. ings in the subject catalog. The author card reads: Additional publications of U.S. government departments, bureaus, agencies, etc., are available in a special collection of government documents. Please consult a librarian. The headings used for subject cards, which are similarly phrased, are based on the gen- eral headings used for the Price Lists. Directions about Building The number of readers who needed directions after they entered the library seemed to indicate that at least a part of this burden could be lifted from the refer- ence department by a careful study of exist- ing printed signs and directions and thoughtful consideration of possible new signs. The staff had no naive ·illusion that visitors to the Grosvenor Library: could be made to read signs any more than those to any other library. But with the knowledge . that even in a small building one out of five requests for help was for simple location directions and that any such requests which could be obviated would mean correspond- ingly fewer interruptions to a staff hard pressed to meet genuine reference needs, a tour of the building indicated, for instance, that nowhere near the main entranc~, the distribution desk, the card catalogs, or the reading room was there a sign directing to the special subject departments (music, medicine, geJ1ealogy, and regional history.) Although the reading room was well identi- fied, nothing would indicate to a first visitor that this is also the reference room and the proper place to seek reference assi~tance. This attempt to make a tour with a lay- man's untutored mind showed, too, that '· some of the existing signs were properly worded but improperly placed; they could easily be overlooked. One out of every four requests was for some sort of instruction. Discussions · in ·staff meetings revealed a preponderant weight of opinion that, while many asked for help in using or interpreting printed reference tools, a disproportionate number of readers needed instruction in the use of the card catalogs and the means of pro- curing books once they had been located in the catalogs. This seemed to be verified by comparing the figures from each of the service desks and finding that 6g.8 per cent of the "readers instructed" were tallied at the desk in the catalog corridor. (Such an impression could be tested more objectively by a short period of noting in every instance the exact nature of instruction given.) Using the Catalog It is without avail to argue with catalog- ers who insist that the layman cannot and should not be expected to use a catalog. This attitude is nonethele~s an admission of failure of the catalog to fulfil one of its primary functions and an insufficient reason for not trying any possible method of help- ing the reader to help himself. Some read- ers really prefer to find their own way! · To be sure, no instruction is so effective as personal attention at the moment a difficulty is encountered, .and when the millennium comes all libraries will have sufficient per- sonnel to carry this out. Until then, it is necessary to try to devi&~ ways to minimize those old questions so familiar to reference librarians-"What , is the book number?" "Is this the author?" "How do I fill in this call slip?" "What shall I do with it now?" and "Haven't you something new? This was published in 188g." (Answer: "No, madam; the author wa~ born in i 88.9; the book was published in 1942.") 26 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES ' Borrowing a leaf from the many library handbooks which reproduce a catalog card with its various features explained in the margin, a photostatic enlargement of an actual subject card from the catalog has been made, moun ted on . a poster allowing plenty of room to call attention to such features as the subject heading, author's name and dates, publication date, pagina- tion, illustrations, bibliographical note, book number, etc., and posted near the catalog. A new call slip form has been printed to provide a better propo:tioned block for the book number, specific places for volume and date of periodicals, and terse directions for presenting the slips at the distribution desk where books will be delivered. The signs i~entifying and explaining the contents of the. author and subject catalogs have been reworded and relocated. Unanswered Requests The third 'l'ecord regularly kept by the reference department is of unanswered re- quests, however received, and has been re- cently introduced. On a simple form are entered the date, name, address, and tele- phone number of the inquirer, a full and explicit statement of the information wanted, the sources consulted. The li- brarian who handles the request signs his name, as does the department head or other librarian who checks the search procedure before the inquirer is told the information cannot be found. ·If the inquirer is referred to another library or agency in the city or elsewhere, this is also noted. Like any record of unanswered requests, this record has administrative value as an indicator, _not JANUARY~ 1947 only of the staff's knowledge of the refer- ence and general collections and their refer- ence technique, but of lacks in the book collection as well. Since a separate sheet is used for each question and a full list of sources consul ted is recorded, a single ques- tion can be given to a second librarian to work on as time permits if it seems possible that h.is special subject knowledge· or indi- vidual differences in approach may enable him to locate the information. Value of Records Though it was pointed out at the begin- ning that the problem of recording reference . service scarcely needs to be called to 'the attention of librarians, this article has been prepared because it is useful to know of as . many systems as possible. It has tried to show also that although the Grosvenor Li- brary has no formula for "evaluating" reference services, by keeping simple reco:rds we have to some extent conquered the diffi- culty of lack of time in which to enter our work. Though a record classified by sub- ject would be useful and a complete record of every question would tell us much about our readers and their interests and about the staff and book collections, the ·time re- quired not only to write up such reports but even more to analyze and interpret them rules them out when the reference staff is small. Yet an almost purely quantitative record is not to be entirely deprecated; such records have been interesting and revelatory and have pointed the way both to better service and to a reduction of routine de- mand upon the staff members of the refer- ence department. 27 .