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How can you enhance reference services without adding staff?

Modern law librarians are under growing pressure to keep up with new technologies, deal instantly with the demands of patrons, keep the library safe and user-friendly, and generally offer the best possible service while keeping costs down. Emerging Solutions in Reference Services: Implications for Libraries in the New Millennium is a very practical guide for coping with rapidly changing technology and increasing demands for services. Its sane, well-researched advice and suggestions can help you deal with the hectic days and nights behind the reference desk.

Emerging Solutions in Reference Services suggests up-to-date, innovative ways to deal with the traditional issues confronting librarians, including: handling problem patrons and ensuring security assigning reference responsibilities teaching patrons at the reference desk or on library tours drafting enforceable rules avoiding the unauthorized practice of law charging--or not charging--fees for services cross-training reference personnel

Some of the traditional problems of law librarians are solved by computers; others are actually exacerbated by the new technologies available. In addition to finding ways that technology can help law librarians, Emerging Solutions in Reference Services offers solutions for the special problems posed by new technology, including questions of Web design, setting up online reference services, virtual library tours, Internet training for patrons, and ensuring technological competency of staff.

In these days of decreasing budgets and increasing demands for services, Emerging Solutions in Reference Services is an invaluable resource for the librarian caught in the middle.

Tabla de contenidos provista por Syndetics

• Introduction-Facing Library Problems: Solutions for the Millennium(p. 1)
• Patrons and the PC: What Problems Should Reference Librarians Solve?(p. 5)
• Problem Patrons and Library Security(p. 19)
• All in a Day's Work: What's a Reference Librarian to Do?(p. 41)
• Creating and Using Web Resources to Train Attorneys: An Experience with the State Bar(p. 57)
• Taking Time for Legal Research Instruction at the Reference Desk(p. 75)
• Law Library Tours in an Information Age: Format, Effectiveness and Function(p. 99)
• Making Electronic Resources Available to Patrons(p. 115)
• Enhancing Reference Services Through Technology(p. 133)
• "Library Police": Drafting and Implementing Enforceable Library Rules(p. 147)
• How to Avoid the Unauthorized Practice of Law at the Reference Desk(p. 165)
• User Fees in Academic Law Libraries(p. 181)
• Staffing the Reference Desk: Improving Service Through Cross-Training and Other Programs(p. 207)
• Index(p. 221)

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Library Journal Review

This reviewer rarely quibbles about a title; however, Emerging Solutions in Reference Services: Implications for Libraries in the New Millennium is not quite right. This book is primarily about legal reference services and implications for law libraries (hence its simultaneous publication in Legal Reference Services Quarterly, Vol. 19, Nos.1/2, 2001). Edited by a law professor and director of the Drake Univ. Law School Library, the book includes seven chapters that view reference services from a uniquely law librarian landscape: web resources to train attorneys; legal research instruction at the reference desk; law library tours; electronic resources for law patrons; unauthorized practice of law at the reference desk; user fees in academic law libraries; and rules in law libraries. The five remaining chapters (PC problems, problem patrons, time management skills, reference services using technology, and reference desk staffing) are peppered with examples from law library settings. All that said, this volume is well done and definitely fills a niche in the law librarianship literature. Written by practicing law librarians, the chapters are concise and offer "solutions" that are practical and well grounded in both experience and the profession's service ethic. Buy the more economically priced softcover edition instead of the very expensive hardback. Highly recommended for law libraries. Janet Brewer, Murray State Univ. Lib., KY (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.