Rethinking Reference for Academic Libraries: Innovative Developments and Future Trends

by Carrie Forbes (Editor), Jennifer Bowers

The rapid development of the Web and Web-based technologies has led to an ongoing redefinition of reference services in academic libraries. A growing diversity of users and the need and possibility for collaboration in delivering reference services bring additional pressures for change. At the same time, there are growing demands for libraries to show accountability and service value. All of these trends have impacted the field and will continue to shape reference and research services. And they have led to a need for increasingly specialized professional competencies and a literature to support them. In order to reimagine reference service for twenty-first century learning environments, practitioners will need to understand several focal areas of emerging reference. In particular, collaboration with campus partners, diverse student populations, technological innovations, the need for assessment, and new professional competencies, present new challenges and opportunities for creating a twenty-first century learning environment. Librarians must not only understand, but also embrace these emerging reference practices.This edited volume, containing five sections and fourteen chapters, reviews the current state of reference services in academic libraries with an emphasis on innovative developments and future trends. The main theme that runs through the book is the urgent need for inventive, imaginative, and responsive reference and research services. Through literature reviews and case studies, this book provides professionals with a convenient compilation of timely issues and models at comparable institutions. As academic libraries shift from functioning primarily as collections repositories to serving as key players in discovery and knowledge creation, value-added services, such as reference, are even more central to libraries' and universities' changing missions.

240 pages, Hardcover

First published December 1, 2014

Reviews

[Dionysius the Areopagite · Rating 5 out of 5]

Works well as either light, informative reading for librarians, or as a slim source to reference topical material in lieu of developing trends in academic libraries.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Finally finished this one for an Endnotes review. Will link to it when it comes out.

Endnotes: The Journal of the New Members Round Table | Volume 6, Number 1 | June 2015

Rethinking Reference for Academic Libraries: Innovative Developments and Future Trends.
Edited by Carrie Forbes and Jennifer Bowers. London: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers,
2014. 262 pp. ISBN 9781442244528.

Reviewed by Sarah Brandt, Instructional Services Librarian, Ingram Library, University of West Georgia

Carrie Forbes and Jennifer Bowers’ edited volume, Rethinking Reference for Academic
Libraries: Innovative Developments and Future Trends situates itself in a time of change and
challenge for academia and the academic library. This volume lays out five areas reference
providers must grapple with in order to stay relevant to library users: Collaboration, Diversity,
Technology, Assessment, and Professional Competencies. Each of the 14 contributed chapters
speaks to one of these themes, and engages with the book’s larger questions about reference’s
relevance, value to the academy, and future.


Overall, this book is a useful one. The chapters contain robust bibliographies, giving much-needed
context and perspective to the issues discussed, and providing many sources for further
reading on each topic. Rethinking Reference also provides an interesting view of, as the title
suggests, the future of reference services. Many chapters, especially in Parts I and II:
Collaboration and Diversity, discuss outreach and instruction efforts as intrinsically tied to
reference. Initially, I was not convinced that these services fit within a volume dedicated to
reference work, but as I read, I began to agree that this broadened view of reference is imperative
moving forward. This book persuasively presents a case that reference can and should be
situated as part of larger teaching and outreach programs, and that they are central concerns
when planning reference services.


Additionally, Part IV: Assessment is well-timed, as more university administrators ask libraries
to demonstrate that our efforts produce measurable results. I expect this aspect of reference to be
fertile ground for research in the coming years, but for a library or librarian just beginning to
think about assessing reference (beyond counting questions), this section is an excellent starting
point.


Though this book sparks thought about how to best provide reference services in the current
climate of academia, it was not always successful. First, like many edited volumes, this book is
best used chapter-by-chapter to inform related projects. I would only recommend reading cover-to-cover
for early-career librarians without significant reference experience. Experienced
librarians may find content unrelated to their work and some of the more basic chapters,
including those in Part V: Professional Competencies, frustrating during a cover-to-cover read.


This book is a recommended buy for any academic library considering changes to its reference
services or for any library serving a Library School or School of Information, especially because
of its interesting section on assessment and well-sourced chapters. Reference is still a relevant
service, and this book is a window into interesting and innovative projects and ideas that will
fuel reference’s ongoing relevance.

Review reprinted from Endnotes .