College and Research Libraries LAURA M. BOYER and WILLIAM C. THEIMER, JR. f • The Use and Training of Nonprofessional Personnel at Reference Desks in Selected College and University Libraries A questionnaire survey was conducted to determine the use and train- ing of nonprofessional personnel (including student assistants) in academic libraries with student enrollments of 500-6,000. Information was gathered on scheduling, educational background, and training of these nonprofessionals. A LEADING CHIEF LIBRARIAN in a Ca- nadian university has made the follow- ing statement: "There is no doubt at all in the minds of most Canadian academ- ic library administrators that 85 percent . . . of questions at public service desks can be answered by non-professional staff."1 Controversial? Yes, especially to many U.S . .academic librarians! Yet, it is recognized that the nonpro- fessional or supportive staff-whether called paraprofessional, subprofession- al, preprofessional, library assistant, li- brary technical assistant, library tech- nician, or library associate-constitutes a major work-force in any college/uni- versity library.2 The overall ratio of one professional to two nonprofessionals is frequently used as a guideline for full- Laura M. Boyer is reference librarian, University of the Pacific, Stockton, Cali- fornia. William C. Theimer, ]r., is associate professor, University of Southern Califor- nia, Los Angeles. This study was supported in part by a "Research Seed-Money Grant" from the University of the Pacific. time staff, 3 even though this ratio "will vary according to the specific needs of institutions."4 What will also vary will be the ratio from department to depart- ment within the library. A recent survey reveals that in many Canadian academic libraries the average ratio of nonprofes- sionals to professionals is 5:1.5 According to Rogers and Weber, "A bright subprofessional assistant can serve to handle the majority of direc- tional and interpretative questions" at a reference desk in a college library,6 while Bunge's study of reference staff- ing and performance concluded that professional librarians did perform "more efficiently than those lacking for- mal training, though not spectacularly so."7 Dawson has stated that nonprofes- sionals can do much in reference work under supervision,8 as well as Taylor, who has said that "a fairly large propor- tion of the questions that come to a ref- erence desk could be answered by a non- professional."9 One source of nonprofessional em- 1193 194 j College & Research Libraries • May 1975 ployees, frequently a gifted source, available to college and university li- braries is the student element. Although students have been, and are being used at reference desks in many college and university libraries, this resource has not been developed as fully as perhaps it could be. For example, a student assist- ant with reference desk experience has expressed the opinion that "until all li- brarians accept the fact that they are not granting students any favors by em- ploying them and begin treating stu- dents as responsible adults, a valuable resource is being neglected and wasted."1o Thus, student assistants form another aspect of the nonprofessional spectrum. Since nonprofessionals are being used in libraries, the training provided for them is obviously most important. As stated in "Library Education and Man- power," "The library profession ha.s .re- sponsibility for defining the tra1nmg and education required for the prepa- ration of personnel ... at any level, sup- portive or professional."11 Aiyep~k~ echoed this when he remarked that 1t IS not realistic to consider <'the issue of training sub-professionals in isolation from the training of professionals."12 One can certainly marshall arguments on both sides as to whether nonprofes- sionals should or should not be used in a college reference situation. But the question here is: "Are they being use??" Are nonprofessionals actually be1ng scheduled to "work the desk"? How much formal education do they have? Do some have a college degree and some no college education? Are student assist- ants included as members of the non- professional staff? Are nonprofessionals trained through in-service programs, either formal or informal? How much are they used to give reference desk ser- vice? What are their opportunities for continuing education and professional growth? THE SURVEY To obtain answers to these questions, a study was conducted to determine the actual use and training of nonprofes- sional personnel at reference desks in academic libraries in the United States. The purpose was to survey a representa- tive nationwide sample of colleges and universities having enrollments of be- tween 500 and 6,000 students in order to ascertain and report the current prac- tices in these selected libraries. A questionnaire was devised after consulting with librarians serving li- braries of differing sizes in several states. This pilot questionnaire was tested on a sample of six college li- braries across the nation and revised on the basis of the librarians' responses and suggestions. Population and Sample Libraries of accredited four-year col- leges/universities ( enrolhnents 500- 6,000) were selected from the U.S. Na- tional Center for Educational Statistics' Opening Fall Enrollment in Higher Ed- ucation, 197013 and the American Coun- cil on Education's Accredited Institu- tions, 1971/72.14 Specialized schools, such as art schools, music schools, and tech- nical schools, were not included. The schools chosen were divided into three categories: ( 1) small colleges/univer- sities with enrollments of between 500 and 1,499; (2) middle-sized colleges/uni- versities with enrollments numbering between 1,500 and 2,999; and ( 3) larger colleges I universities whose enrollments ranged from 3,000 to 6,000. A 20 per- cent stratified random sample was select- ed from each category. One hundred fifty questionnaires were then mailed to this sample according to the follow- ing schedule: Group 1: 500-1,499 student enroll- ment-81libraries Group 2: 1,500-2,999 student enroll- ment-42libraries Use and Training of Nonprofessional Personnel/ 195 Group 3: 3,000-6,000 student enroll- · ment-27 libraries The letter accompanying the question- naire was addressed to the reference li- brarian and requested that the informa- tion regarding the use or non-use of nonprofessionals be limited to the main library and to library and reference hours during the academic year only. The respondents were assured that their responses would be considered confiden- tial and that their institution would not be identified in any publication. The term Non professional ~as defined as any person who did not have a master's degree in librarianship or the fifth-year BLS degree. Included, therefore, were those with a bachelor's degree, with or without some library science units; those with a master's degree in a field other than librarianship; those with some col- lege education or no college education; and student assistants. Returns In response to the initial mailing on F ebruary 28, 1973, of 150 question- naires, 113, or 75 percent, were received. After two follow-up letters had been mailed to those who had not answered, the total response rose to 144, 96 per- cent. Of these responses, 141, or 94 per- cent, were found usable and are in- cluded in the following analysis. RESULTS Relative Use of Non professionals at Reference Desks among the Various College/ University Libraries A significant difference ( X 2 == 19.92, df = 1, p < .001) was found in answer to the basic question as to whether non- professionals are used to staff reference desks regardless of amount of time spent at the desk. In 69 percent of the reporting libraries, nonprofessionals are used at the reference desk, while in 31 percent, nonprofessionals are not used at the reference desk. This relationship was consistent across the three size cate- gories of colleges/universities, and no significant diHerences were found in the proportion of libraries in each category who use nonprofessionals. Approxi- mately one-third of the libraries of the larger colleges do not use nonprofes- sionals at all in staffing the desk. Thus, while the majority of colleges and uni- versities are making use of nonprofes- sionals, a substantial group of these in- stitutions is not. Having established the fact that non- professionals are rather widely used in staffing libraries, one must take into con- sideration the hours to be worked; therefore, the number of hours that li- braries are open compared with the number of hours the reference desk is staffed in these libraries was determined. Hours the libraries were open ranged from 50 to 112 hours per week, with the majority of libraries open from 70 to 100 hours per week. Only one library re- ported being open more than 100 hours per week and twelve libraries less than 70 hours. Whereas there was no differ- ence among the categories of colleges and universities in the number of hours the main library was open, the data in Table 1 show that there were significant differences in the number of hours the reference desk was open. (It should be noted that ten of the institutions indi- cated that they had no separate refer- ence desks in their institutions. Thus the total possible number of responses on questions relating only to reference desks was 131. ) TABLE 1 NuMBER OF HouRS REFERENcE DESK Is STAFFED PER WEEK, BY SrzE OF STUDENT BoDY Number of Hours per Week Reference Desk Staffed Size of Total Number Student Body lo-59 60-79 80-99 of Libraries 500-1,499 1,500-2,999 3,000-6,000 26 9 3 31 23 8 X2 = 25.98, df = 4, p < .001 9 6 15 66 38 26 196/ College & Research Libraries • May 1975 TABLE2 NUMBER OF PRoFESSIONAL AND NoNPROFESSIONAL 0 PERSoNNEL UsED AT REFERENCE DEsKS IN CoLLEGE/UNIVERSITY LmRARIES, BY SlZE oF STUDENT BoDY Size of Student Body Professional Personnel Nonprofessional Personnel Number of Total Personnel Libraries Reporting 500-1,499 1,500-2,999 3,000-6,000 Total X2 = 59.2, df = 2, p < .001 0 Student assistants included. 172 177 126 475 Generally, the smaller colleges staff their reference desks fewer hours than the larger colleges. The majority of li- braries of the smaller colleges staff the desks from 10 to 79 hours per week; the majority of the middle-size schools from 60 to 79 hours; and the majority of the larger schools from 80 to 99 hours. The number of hours of refer- ence service, regardless of school size, ranged from 16 to 99 hours per week, with an average of 63 hours. The personnel scheduled to work these hours are shown in Table 2. This number includes all persons whether full-time or part-time, professional or nonprofessional, since one must ob- serve the use of professionals in order to assess the real use of nonprofession- als. The three categories of libraries in the colleges and universities differ sig- nificantly in the number of nonprofes- sionals who staff the desk. The libraries 265 77 124 466 437 67 254 37 250 26 941 130 of the smaller and larger schools use significantly more nonprofessionals than do the libraries of the middle-sized schools. Non professional Personnel (Reference Assistants and Student Assistants) Since the respondents to the question- naire were queried as to whether stu- dent assistants were also used to give reference service, Table 3 shows the number of students and the number of other nonprofessionals, called «refer- ence assistants" for the purpose of this paper, who are employed by each group of libraries. The libraries of the mid- dle-sized colleges use significantly fewer students than the libraries of either the smaller or larger schools. Reference as- sistants account for between 30 and 40 percent of the nonprofessional person- nel in the libraries of the smaller and TABLE 3 NUMBER OF NoNPROFESSIONAL PERsoNNEL (REFERENCE AssiSTANTS 0 AND STUDENT AssiSTANTS) UsED AT REFERENcE DEsKS IN CoLLEGE/UNIVERSITY LmRARIEs, BY SIZE oF STUDENT BooYt Reference Assistants Student Assistants Size of Student Body Number Percent Number Percent Number 500-1,499 101 22 164 35 265 1,500~2,999 39 8 38 8 77 3,000-6,000 39 8 85 19 124 Total 179 38 287 62 466 Total Percent 57 16 27 100 X2 = 7.38, df = 2, p < .05 o The term "reference assistant" is used in this paper to identify those nonprofessionals who ar~ not stu- dent assistants. t Percentages based on total nonprofessional personnel. Use and Training of Nonprofessional Personnel j 197 TABLE 4 NUMBER OF PROFESSIONAL AND NONPROFESSIONAL 0 PERSONNEL BY EDUCATIONAL BACKGROUND UsED AT REFERENCE DESKS IN COLLEGE/UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES, BY SIZE OF STUDENT BODY Professionals A.M.L.S . A .M.L.S. or Fifth plus Second Size of Student Body Year B.L.S. Master's 500-1,499 145 27 1,500-2,999 151 26 3,000-6,000 104 22 Total 400 75 Professionals X2 = .4, df = 2, n.s. Nonprofessionals X2 = 15.41, df = 4, p < .01 0 Student assistants not included. larger colleges but account for 50 per- cent in the middle-sized colleges. Educational Level of Reference Assistants The formal education of the support- ive staff who are not students, the ref- erence assistants, as compared with the professional staff is shown in Table 4. In the libraries of all three sizes of col- leges, approximately 16 percent of the professional librarians have a second master's degree. Two librarians have a Ph.D. degree, while a third is complet- ing the requirements toward a doctor- ate. Significant differences exist in the edu- cational background of the nonprofes- sionals used in the three groups of col- lege/ university libraries, as shown in Table 4. Of the total number of these reference assistants, roughly three-fifths have a bachelor's degree or an addition- al degree, while about one-fifth have a junior college education and one-fifth no college at all. In libraries of the mid- dle-sized colleges, 90 percent of the non- professionals have a bachelor's degree or above, while approximately 50 per- cent in the smaller and larger-sized schools have a college degree. An inter- esting observation is that significantly fewer persons with a junior college ed- ucation or less are employed by the li- braries of the middle-sized schools. Nonprofessionals A.B., A.M. Total (not in L.S . ) A.A. No College 172 56 20 25 177 35 3 1 126 23 6 10 475 114 29 36 On-the-Job Training Provided by Libraries Total 101 39 39 179 Besides the formal education which an employee brings to a position, train- ing in the library is essential before these persons are ready to assume the re- sponsibility at the desk. Some college li- braries have formal in-service training programs; others have only informal practices. There are no significant dif- ferences among the libraries of various sized colleges and universities responding to the questionnaire in the number who provide formal in-service training to their nonprofessional staff. The great majority, more than 80 percent, indicat- ed that formal in-service training was not provided. Of the thirteen who re- sponded positively, only five indicated that they had a written manual to help them in their in-service training work. Unfortunately, the questionnaire was not designed to provide information . re- garding qualitative differences in the in- service training offered by these li- braries. Further research should seek to determine whether nonprofessionals who receive this formal training pro- vide a substantially different kind of service to their institution. If they provided no formal in-service training in their library, the respon- dents who used nonprofessional help were asked if they had an informal in- 198/ College & Research Libraries • May 1975 TABLE 5 NuMBER oF PROFESSIONAL AND NoNPROFESSIONAL 0 PERsONNEL WHo WoRK AT REFERENCE DEsK, BY NuMBER oF HouRs WoRKED PER WEEK Hours Worked per Week Type of Personnel 10 or less 11- 20 Professional 218 111 Non professional 363 44 Total 581 155 0 Student assistants included. service training program. Of the fifty- eight who responded negatively to a for- mal in-service program, fifty-five indi- cated the existence of an informal in- service program, i.e., tour, general orien- tation, reference interview techniques, etc. Although no written responses were required, one respondent commented: "I try to make a considerable effort with our work study students in terms of having their work be a challenging learning experience. . . . Our non-pro- fessionals who work evenings and week- ends, especially the latter, include older people who may or may not be going for their MLS. We aren't around to give them the same attention as we do the student [assistants] ." Amount of Service Provided at Reference Desk by Non professional Personnel To determine how much reference desk service the supportive staff renders, one must compare the hours worked at the reference desk by both profession- al and nonprofessional personnel. In Total Number 21-30 31-40 of Personnel 34 81 444 9 17 433 43 98 877 the pilot questionnaire an attempt was made to determine the number of hours the nonprofessionals worked on their own. Questions were devised to try to obtain this information, but all proved too complicated to get meaningful re- sponses. Unfortunately, therefore, this information is not available. It 'can be observed (Table 5) that approximately one-half of the professionals and slightly more than four-fifths of the nonprofessionals staff the reference desk ten hours or less per week. Sub- stantially more professional librarians work more reference desk hours than do the nonprofessionals in the remain- ing divisions of hours worked per week. This fact is reflected in Table 6, which shows that 67 percent of the total ref- erence desk hours are staffed by profes- sional librarians, 19 percent by refer- ence assistants, and 14 percent by stu- dent assistants; It can, therefore, be noted that a total of 33 percent of the reference desk time is staffed by nonpro- fessional personnel. TABLE 6 TOTAL NuMBER OF HouRS WoRKED PER WEEK Al' REFERENCE DEsK BY PROFESSIONAL AND NoNPROFESSIONAL PERSONNEL, BY SIZE OF STUDENT BoDY Hours Worked per Week Nonprofessional Size of Professional Reference Assistants Student Assistants Total Student Body Number Percent Number Percent Number Percent Number 500-1,499 2,929 29 1,141 12 768 8 4,838 1,500- 2,999 1,875 19 419 4 208 2 2,502 3,000-6,000 1,862 19 296 3 395 4 2,553 Total 6,666 67 1,856 19 1,371 14 9,893 Percent 49 25 26 100 Use and Training of Nonprofessional Personnel j 199 Opportunities for Continuing Education and Professional Growth For the nonprofessionals who are not students, opportunities should exist for continuing education and professional growth. In responses to questions con- cerning staff development programs, 70 percent of the libraries answering indi- cated that nonprofessionals may take classes during the working day. Time has to be made up in one-half of those libraries which indicated that classes may be taken. Fifty-one percent of the libraries stated that tuition waivers are given nonprofessionals who take classes. Also, nonprofessionals may attend pro- fessional library meetings during the working day in 74 percent of the li- braries responding who use nonprofes- sional personnel. This information in- dicates that libraries in these institutions generally are interested in improving the competencies of their nonprofes- sional staff. It would appear that many also feel that the benefits to the institu- tions are sufficient to allow time off for their nonprofessionals to take advanced academic work without loss of pay and/ or tuition waiver. SUMMARY This nationwide study, which was de- signed to determine if nonprofessionals are scheduled to work at reference desks in academic libraries, revealed that over two-thirds of the libraries questioned do use nonprofessionals at the desk to some degree. A nonprofessional was de- fined as any full-time or part-time em- ployee who did not have a master's de- gree in librarianship or the fifth-year B.L.S. Student assistants were also in- cluded with nonprofessional personnel. The amount of time spent at the ref- erence desk by nonprofessionals varied from emergency use only to as many as forty hours per week. From a tally of reference desk hours reported, it was found that 33 percent of the total hours the reference desk was staffed was filled by nonprofessionals (reference assistants and student assistants), while 67 percent of the total time was filled by professionals. The survey data showed that roughly three-fifths of the reference assistants had at least a bachelor's degree; about one-fifth had a junior college education; and one-fifth had no college education. A few formal in-service training pro- grams were reported by libraries using nonprofessionals; more had informal programs, but no significant differences could be gathered from the data re- garding in-service training. Consequently, this study has shown that nonprofessionals at reference desks in academic libraries are indeed used in a supportive manner. Additional re- search in the area of in-service training programs for both reference and stu- dent assistants would be valuable as well as research into the exact times nonpro- fessionals are scheduled and the evalua- tion of the quality of service given. REFERENCES 1. Letter, Mrs. Margaret Beckman, chief li- brarian, University of Guelph, Ontario, and past president, Canadian Association of College and University Libraries, to au- thor, October 1973. 2. Robert H. Muller, "Principles Governing the Employment of Non-Professional Per- sonnel in University Libraries," in Lewis Branscomb, comp., The Case for Faculty Status for Academic Librarians ( Chicago: American Library Assn., 1960), p.104. 3. Archie L. McNeal, "Ratio of Professional to Clerical Staff," College & Research Li- braries 17:223 (May 1956). 4. "Standards for College Libraries," College & Research Libraries 20:275 (July 1959). 5. "CARL Universities Salary and Budget Survey," CACUL Newsletter 5:70 (Dec. 10, 1973). 6. Rutherford Rogers and David C. Weber, University Library Administration ( New York: Wilson, 1971 ), p.210. 200/ College & Research Libraries • May 1975 7. Charles A. Bunge, "Library Education and Reference Performance," Library journal 92:581 (April 15, 1967). 8. John M. Dawson, "Not Too Academic," College & Research Libraries 27:39 (Jan. 1966). 9. Robert S. Taylor, "Orienting the Library to the User," in Use, Mis-Use, and Non- Use of Academic Libraries ( Woodside, N.Y.: College and University Libraries Sec- tion, New York Library Assn., 1970), p.15. 10. Susan Goodrich, "No, I'm Not a Librarian, But May I Help You," Michigan Librarian 38:25 (Winter 1972). 11. "Library Education and Manpower," Amer- ican Libraries 1:341 (Jan. 1972). 12. Wilson 0. Aiyepeku, "Training Sub-profes- sional Library Staff: An International Sur~ vey," International Library Review 4:5 (Jan. 1972). 13. U.S. National Center for Educational Sta- tistics, Opening Fall Enrollment in Higher Education, 1970-Part B (Washington, D.C.: _Govt. Print. Off., 1970). 14. American Council on Education, Accredit- ed Institutions, 1971172 (Washington, D.C.: 1971). INSTRUCTIONS FOR AUTHORS Manuscripts of articles submitted to College & Research Libraries are to be sent to the Editor: Richard D. Johnson, James M. Milne Library, State University College, Oneonta, NY 13820. Manuscripts should be in two copies and typed in double space. The title, name and affiliation of the author, and an abstract of 75 to 100 words should precede the article. Notes are to be consecutively numbered throughout the manu- script and typed in double space on separate sheets at the end. The journal follows A Manual of Style, 12th ed., rev. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, -1969) in matters of bibliographic style; and recent issues of this journal may be consulted as well.