The Desk and Beyond: Next Generation Reference Services. Eds. Sarah K. Steiner and M. Leslie Madden. Chicago, Ill.: Association of College and Research Libraries, 2008. 172p. $26 (ISBN 978-0-8389-0964-5). LC 2008-004797.
Over the past several years, the ways in which academic librarians have been offering reference services to their campus community has changed and evolved. Librarians have embraced the information age and its attendant technology to find innovative and creative ways to adapt and change with the times. The Desk and Beyond: Next Generation Reference Services presents a look at how 13 academic libraries have used technology to achieve these goals. It is a compilation of contributed papers on the topic of current and future trends in reference services with the use of the digital environment.
The ideas here range from the easily doable to the inventive. Yet each will prove cost-effective and liberating to academic librarians, especially those who embrace this new frontier. Libraries, librarians, and their campus constituents will all benefit from the ideas and the ways they can be implemented. Each chapter presents an idea and then gives in-depth details about how the idea was created, planned out, and offered to the campus community. The librarians report on how each was implemented, and each specific case study comes with its attendant insight gained from the experience. The physical reference desk is adapted to go where the campus libraries’ users are or to invite them to find the librarians in those arenas that are most frequented by those users.
Some ideas involve the use of already existing resources. It could be simply the librarians going "on the loose" by taking a laptop and desk outside the physical library and setting up shop in other campus buildings, or it could be the use of text and instant messaging to invite library users to use those methods to facilitate librarians’ expertise for their research needs. Many aspects of the new technology, especially those related to communication, are utilized for the cause of furthering the use of academic libraries and librarians.
The chapters are written in clear and concise styles even though each is delivered from a different library or group of librarians. The approach serves to make the volume readable. The editors have endeavored to make the work approachable and the content easily understood. The supporting documentation when presented in each case is nicely articulated and comprehensible. The librarian authors, while ranging in various degrees of skill, expertise and experience, have shared their achievements and knowledge in very accessible prose. The accompanying bibliographies offer resources for further research and more understanding before attempting a specific project.
This book shows the trends as well as the increasing use of the digital environment in librarianship. It is highly recommended reading for librarians, even those who have attempted or have already implemented some of the ideas covered here.—Loreen S. Phillips, University of Texas–Dallas, Richardson, Texas.