Yesterday, I was reading some articles from the very interesting Evidence Based Library and Information Practice which has me thinking about how librarians and information professionals deliver their services and the value of those services. Over time, I have seen movement away from low value services (e.g. automated circulation machines are now common at public and academic libraries rather than having somebody stand at a desk all day) to value added advice and service (i.e. designing research tools, performing patent research to save money, improving the quality of medical treatments and more). Without further ado, let’s look at two case studies.
The first article – A Librarian Consultation Service Improves Decision-Making and Saves Time for Primary Care Practitioners – was written by Heather Ganshorn (a librarian at Health Information Network Calgary, University of Calgary). This article reviews a recent study published in a medical journal (Just-in-Time Information Improved Decision-Making in Primary Care: A Randomized Controlled Trial, published November 2008). The article examined the impact of primary care practitioners submitting questions to librarians from mobile devices when treating patients. Health professionals saved time and, “63.7% of the answers were rated by participants as having a high positive impact on decision-making…” This type of study – applying the rigour of a medical clinical trial to librarianship – is innovative and worthy of replication. There’s another evidence summary on the positive impact of librarians in the intensive care unit (ICU) as well. Yet more evidence that shows that librarians make a measurable, positive difference in delivering health care.
In order to make greater room for service innovation, one must assess some of the long standing services we offer. One
candidate for adjustment is the reference desk. Many people in the field will tell you that many questions (particularly in public and academic libraries) tend to involve directions, technology problems (“The printer is not working!”) and the like. One cannot take action on anecdotes though. A recent evidence review (Staffing an Academic Reference Desk with Librarians is not Cost-effective by Cari Merkley, Librarian at Mount Royal College in Calgary) found that out of close to 7000 reference questions (phone, email and in person) sampled through this decade at Stetson University found that 36% of queries related to printer/copier problems and only “Only 11% (784) of questions logged were deemed sufficiently complex by the researcher to require the attention of a librarian. The remaining 6175 transactions (89% of all those logged) could most likely be handled by a different staffing complement.” The evidence review does raise some methodological questions with the validity of the study, but I think there is something to this. When people want to see their physician, they have to make an appointment. The same thing applies to lawyers, accountants, and other professionals. While I suspect that these findings are generalizable to many academic and public libraries, it would be best to conduct similar investigations of reference desk interactions. Besides, the SLA Alignment Project reveals that many executives tend to value embedded research in working teams more than sitting around in the library or information desk waiting for a question.
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