At Butler University, we’re changing how we present Reference Services. For the last couple of years, we’ve had a “Reference Team” and shared responsibilities for the department and services. Professional librarians have staffed the desk from 10am to 10pm. As of this fall, we’ll be staffing the desk with a part-time librarian and a few student employees for the daytime hours, but keeping the librarians on during the evening hours. There will be an “on call” schedule where librarians make themselves available during their time, so if there is a question that the person staffing the desk cannot answer, they have a resource to check with.

This is probably not the final stage, but an experimentation in the works. I’ll try to write more about it as we implement this style of Reference Services, to discuss what’s working or not working.