Friday, April 30, 2010

A Concept Paper for a Roving Reference Service for De La Salle University-Manila

A Concept Paper for a Roving Reference Service for De La Salle University-Manila
First Part of A Series
By Mr. Roderick B. Ramos, Associate Librarian


Proposal Statement


To set up a roving reference service desk for the De La Salle University-Manila aimed at establishing off-site (mobile) librarianship offering assistance to users outside the library with roving librarians alternately circulating within the University premises. Accessibility at any Internet terminals in and off DLSU-Manila Campus and continuously increasing and updated databases plus extremely huge print collections of books, unpublished materials, special collections and periodical subscriptions only identify the need for roving faculty-librarians who are expectedly tasked to deliver effective off-site library services.

The roving reference service for the library of De La Salle University shall bring out and showcase a studio space with an attractive and appropriately designed IRS help Desk or booth, primarily, for the library’s Customer Relationship Management or CRM, to be customer-centric library organization while discovering library- customer chemistry; to establish effective customer relationships management by acquiring, maintaining and expanding library customer database; and, to create mechanisms while providing and marketing hardcore web-based/online 24-hour service to invisible and wired library customers, and for the following specific service inquiries about/on electronic options and non-web-based reader services offered by the Information-Reference Section and the library itself which are increasing each year:

• University Library • History
• Organizational Chart
• Frequently Ask Questions (FAQ)
• Current Awareness Bulletin Service
• Library Orientation 2009
• Information Literacy Program Request Form
• Tutorials
• Wireless Access
• Newsette
• Consortia
• Guidelines for Visiting Users
• Ask LORA (Library Online Reference Assistant)
• Chat with LORA
• Search
• WebOPAC
• DLSU PULSE (Philippine University Library Search Engine)
• Pathfinder
• Reference Tools
• Webliography
• Faculty Publications
• Philippine Biographical Webliographies
• Subject Webliographies
• Online Subscriptions
• Electronic Databases
• E-journals
• Free/On-trial Databases
• Sections & Satellite Libraries
• Depository Area
• IMS
• OPAC
• American Studies Resource Center
• European Documentation Centre
• Conference/Seminar Rooms
• Cybernook
• Gender, Sexuality and Reproductive Health Data Bank
• Bienvenido N. Santos
• Brother Andrew Gonzales Memorabilia Room
• Francisco Ortigas Jr. Seminar Room
• Lorenzo M. Tanada Memorabilia Room
• Exhibit Area and Display Cases
• Technical Services
• Director’s Office
• Periodicals
• Information-Reference Service
• Systems Services
• Public Programs
• Conference/Seminar Rooms
• OPAC
• CRS Counter
• Graduate Studies Facilities
• Mini E-Classroom
• Photocopying Services
• Scanning services
• Conference/Seminar Rooms
• Faculty Corner
• Graduate studies facilities
• Photocopying Services
• Artifacts Collection
• Photocopying Services
• Filipiniana
• Archives/Special Collection/Memorabilia
• Br. Andrew Gonzales Hall
• Br. Benedict Learning Resource Center
• Graduate School of Business (La Salle Green Hills, Mandaluyong City)
• Graduate School of Business (5th floor, RCBC Plaza, Makati City)
• Intranet access only
• Library Manual

Introduction


We realize that people can’t always come to the library. So, we try to bring the library to the people. New technology gives us new ways to do that. (Anne Cain)

Roving librarians can play a role in this linking as we share personal and friendly interchanges with students while providing some direct or incidental learning. We also learn more about our students and their current interests and curiosities during roving than we would have in the traditional reference setting. (Lisa Lavoie, 2008).


Come to think of it and try to imagine a faculty-librarian in a studio-type, make-shift booth with a reference help desk in the midst of a crowd populating the ground floor-lobby of the Yuchengco Building, and see LORA with a laptop and a microphone enticing all, individually, to come closer and receive a personalized information service including technical queries. Also, proximity of LORA’s booth to the Amphitheatre and Marian Quadrangle where students, faculty, staff, and community library users are is very strong for library service promotion. This roving reference and a help desk is an information and assistance resource allowing the faculty-librarian to engage in conversation while troubleshooting, technical or non-technical, problems. Specifically, the conversation is bridging CRM and may send each as repeat user and be lifelong occupant of the library. For example, users’ curiosity about LORA and to see her in person expressed through Ask LORA or Chat with LORA facilities, is winsome. Any attempt to take on and keep a passerby to listen about what the library’s online reference assistant, LORA, can offer and her homepage, http://www.dlsu.edu.ph/library/, is captivating. The library’s electronic site of De La Salle University, in particular, features PULSE or DLSU's Philippine University Library Search Engine, http://www.dlsu.edu.ph/library/pulse/search.asp, is likely to excite onlookers to run to the library building anytime or grab a referral slip right there and then where the booth is.

Enrollees amounting to more than 15,000 - graduate enrollees , newly enrolled freshmen students, transferees, daily average of outside researchers, and a percentage or a number from the academic community who may have not been in the library and might have not been homepage users, it becomes fundamental that the DLSU library lure these statistics, having roving reference in mind as one radical approach, e.g., to walk through still and moving pictures in an interactive content of a 3-minute virtual tour or an actual visit to the University’s center for learning, reading and research. The thing that Radical Reference is best known for is pushing the boundaries of what it means to do reference and more institutions are thinking about things like roving reference. (James Jacobs, 2007)


The library council continuously discovers new initiatives and to provide a more pleasant and stimulating user-oriented learning environment through convenient and effective access to library services, collections and information sources, the Library will set up a roving reference service desk for the De La Salle University-Manila aimed at establishing off-site (mobile) librarianship offering assistance to users outside the library with roving librarians alternately circulating within the University premises. By bringing out a faculty-librarian near high traffic areas such as Brother Connon Hall with a clinic, an auditorium, canteen, students’ coop and a bookstore, for example, renders the rover (faculty-librarian) accessible at the point of need (Courtois & Liriano, 2000) and who is adept at hosting a conversation (Lavoie, 2008). The faculty-librarian is expected to be one great conversationalist having high enthusiasm talking about the library services to each inquirer who enjoys listening and sends feedback after seeking help. The rover or the faculty-librarian serves as a walking PR with roving reference service desk as his platform in announcing her day business or event.

Purpose & Figures


Table 1 Users with PINS & W/o PINS

P.Type Registrant With PIN Without PIN
Undergraduate 11425 6894 4531
Graduate 2201 1406 795

Table 1 reveals that 40% or 4531 out of 11425 undergraduate records from the Millennium database of the previous term did not register or set a personal identification number or a desired PIN/password through the MyLibrary, http://lib1000.dlsu.edu.ph/patroninfo. Specific PINS entered in the database assist each student to login and have patron privileges, off campus access to online subscriptions, and over other resources of the university library. 4531 registrants or enrolled students is quite a number and is probably causal to low rates of database use.

36% or 795 out of 2201 graduate records from the Millennium database of the previous term did not register or set a personal identification number or a desired PIN/password through the MyLibrary.

Table 2 Users with CIRC Activity/Without CIRC Activity

P.Type Registrant With CIRC Activity Without CIRC Activity
Undergraduate 11425 5444 5981
Graduate 2201 1128 1073

CIRC Activity means that the patron borrowed something in the library
More than half of the undergraduate registrants, 52% or 5981 failed to borrow any from the library. Graduate records have a percentage of 47 or 1073 students who have never made use of their accounts for library transactions.

Table 3 Users Who Accessed/Did Not Access Databases Off Campus

P.Type Registrant Access Off Campus DB Did not Access Off Campus DB
Undergraduate 11425 2588 8837
Graduate 2201 802 1399

Very high percentages are documented for students who did not access databases off campus, 77% or 8837 out of 11425 and 64% or 1399 out of 2201, respectively of undergraduates and graduates.

(Tables provided by Avelino Dancalan , 2010)