Around The World: Rethinking Reference: A Case Study At Portland State University's Millar Library

Citation

Andrews, J.C., Bowman, M. and Hanke, D.M. (2003), "Around The World: Rethinking Reference: A Case Study At Portland State University's Millar Library", Library Hi Tech News, Vol. 20 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/lhtn.2003.23920daf.003

Around The World: Rethinking Reference: A Case Study At Portland State University's Millar Library

Judy C. Andrews, Michael Bowman and Douglas M. Hanke

Overview

Portland State University in Portland, Oregon is an urban institution, serving over 20,000 undergraduate and graduate students. Millar Library provides informational services for the Portland scholarly community, local business and law communities, and the general public. The Library's public services must be flexible to accommodate this diverse group of patrons in an increasingly interdisciplinary scholarly environment. Starting in 1995, the Library staff began a process to rework the reference model to better meet these needs. This article outlines the changes made to the Library and the theory behind the Research and Learning Center. The Library Web site at www.lib.pdx.edu/ demonstrates the Library environment and range of services currently offered at Portland State.

Seeds of change

The original Millar Library floorplan was based on the traditional scholarly disciplines. Five of the six floors were dedicated to a specific subject area, housing a separate reference desk and subject specialists. Student assistants staffed reference desks in the evenings and on weekends. The ground floor was a general information desk staffed by librarians and library technicians during the weekday hours and by librarians in the evenings and on weekends. The University Office of Information Technology (OIT) operated a computer lab on the first floor, used for writing papers, e-mail, and Web surfing (see Figure 1).

Each floor of the library adopted technology as individual expertise and budgets allowed. There was little consistency of hardware or software. Configurations of hardware and software varied from floor to floor. This type of specialization worked very well for some patrons but, as budgets grew tighter and learning became more interdisciplinary, a plan for a single reference desk developed.

Figure 1 Portland State University Library second floor (before)

One of the factors making learning more interdisciplinary was the movement of Portland State University to the University Studies model in the 1994-1995 school year. This model integrates multiple subject areas into classes, which students take as their core requirements. The traditional subject librarians were increasingly frustrated in their attempts to deal with these diverse questions, and a new solution was sought.

The Millar Library administration set in motion the restructuring process by appointing a Vision Committee in 1995. The decision was made to move from multiple floors with reference desks to a single reference point creating the Research and Learning Center. This would accomplish three things:

1. 1.

   The librarians would be better able to serve the University Studies model.

2. 2.

   Increased staffing presence without additional hiring.

3. 3.

   The literature suggested that this single point of reference model worked better for undergraduates (Tyckoson, 2001).

The process of envisioning the future, planning for space, technology and people, raising the funds and completing the project was arduous and time-consuming. Speculating on the future is always a dubious procedure and both people and technology had to be included in the equation. State bonds paid for half of the renovation. Additional funding for the project was made possible by an IMLS grant, secured by the efforts of the local Congressional delegation, representative David Wu and Senator Gordon Smith.

The Vision Committee made two assumptions while planning for the new floor:

1. 1.

   The space would be used primarily for research.

2. 2.

   Librarians would staff the centralized reference desk whenever it was open, assisted by library technicians and student assistants.

The Committee was dedicated to providing the best technology available within the budget, but was wary of becoming nothing more than a computer farm. The existing OIT computer lab on the first floor continues to expand and students are directed there for non-research computer usage.

New reference floor configuration

The decision was made to move from the five floors of service to a single, dedicated floor of reference. The second floor was proposed to house the new Research and Learning Center. The movement from separate floors to a single floor of reference was complicated. We had to rewire portions of the building, move offices, and renovate much of the second floor. In addition, Millar Library began reorganizing the entire collection, moving from the previous subject area organization to an alphabetical, bottom-to-top collection.

The Library compromised on the final computer configuration, settling on 28 terminals running off a Citrix server and 16 PCs. There are three Citrix servers – one is the domain server and two are application servers. The PCs are equipped with Zip drives, CD/DVD drives and CD burners. In addition, they run the Windows 2000 operating system, which handles security and user authentication. All of the computers have flat panel displays.

The reference desk houses three PCs. Each station has dual monitors, one facing the patron and the other facing the reference staff. This allows the librarian and the patron to see the screen simultaneously, which helps the patron during the reference interview. Two of these stations are counter-high and the other is a sit-down station. This station is used for more in-depth interviews and Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) accommodation. In addition, three consultation areas were built. These are separated from the rest of the floor with wood and glass partitions, and can be used for in-depth consultations with librarians or faculty. The consultation stations are equipped with dedicated PCs and have some specialized software (see Figure 2).

Figure 2 Millar Library Research and Learning Center (after renovation)

Outcomes

The Reference Desk has been very busy as a result of the redesign. We have not experienced the fall-off of questions that many other libraries have. Reference Desk staff average anywhere from 25 to 60 questions an hour during the middle of the day. This level of questions is much higher than anticipated – we have had to triple-staff the desk more often than originally planned. The instruction program has also grown during this time, contributing to the growth of questions at the Reference Desk.

Referrals are up – the subject specialists have had an increase in consultations and drop-in questions. This has been most apparent for the Business Librarian. In general, we have been able to handle the vast majority of questions directly at the Reference Desk. Most of the staff became familiar with new subject areas faster than they thought would be possible.

Millar Library is open 24 hours a day, five days a week. Our public computers are never turned off, and are constantly in use. We have had few total computer failures, and our Systems Department has been able to make repairs as needed to keep our computers running. Using Symantec Ghost, we have recently created images of the public station and propagate this image as needed – this has made a big difference in repair time.

There is an increasing demand for network access from students with laptops. All of the study rooms and a substantial area on the third floor of the library contain DHCP Ethernet ports. This has led to a rash of thefts of Ethernet cables. We have also experienced problems with patrons unplugging the Ethernet cables from our public machines. They use the cables to plug in their laptops and do not reattach the cables when they leave. We are working on more authentication. Additional networking resulted from the installation of two 802.11b wireless hubs on every floor for patrons with laptops and wireless cards. This system requires registering the MAC address of the wireless card for authentication, and is limited to PSU students only.

Printing has been problematic. The library uses the GoPrint system and charges $0.10 per page. This fee has discouraged most of our paper wastage. The shifting of existing printers from their original locations to the new reference area introduced several networking problems that took time to resolve. Current printer locations have limited space, leading to visibility issues from some of the workstations.

The PCs in the Research and Learning Center use Windows 2000 security for authenticating users. We found that Windows 2000 did not allow us to set time limits, leading to problems with some patrons. We had consultants write a script to set time limits on accounts for members of the general public. Some users soon found a way around the script, but once we found the hole we were able to stop the majority of abuse.

There are public computers on every floor of the library. These machines use a reverse proxy server to access the library catalog, electronic resources, and other campuses. Public machines do not require the patron to log-in, giving us a place to send patrons who do not wish to show us photo ID (or do not have photo ID), and those members of the general public who need more than an hour to conduct their research.

Millar Library is the Regional Depository Library for Federal Government Information. As a Depository Library, we must provide free access to this information. We cannot require photo identification as a requirement to access government information. Another reverse proxy was set up to comply with these regulations. This proxy allows patrons in the Government Information area access to all information with a .gov or .edu domain. This arrangement seems to be working well.

Planning for the future

The Library has hired a new System Administrator who had formerly worked at OIT. We expect this will help us work more closely with OIT on integrating our Windows 2000 network into the campus-wide Active Directory structure. This will enable us to use the on-campus computer account system for faculty, staff, and students, and our own system only for non-PSU patrons. This should simplify our account maintenance issues.

The expanded pool of librarians covering hours on the Reference Desk has led to fewer Reference Desk hours for each librarian. In addition, the library has been able to reduce individual librarian reference hours as necessary for special project work or heavy instructional loads. It has also enabled the Library to handle the effects of multiple retirements better.

The Library still needs to balance the demand for computers versus the number of computers that we are able to support from the Reference Desk. We may revisit time restrictions on users before significantly expanding the number of computers we provide. The redesigned floor-plan includes space for 16 additional computers, which will require additional wiring, too.

Many of our public computers are old and we are looking into replacing them. One issue with purchasing so many new computers at one time is that they will begin failing at the same time. We hope to replace them before that happens. As we replace the older laptops in our classrooms, we are considering providing these laptops (and their wireless cards) to students for check-out. There are still theft-prevention details to work out.

Conclusions

The completed Research and Learning Center is the result of compromises between ideals of technology, patron desires, and budgetary realities. The floor coalesced from separate floors with their own implementations of reference and technology into a thriving, focal point of the Library. The inviting atmosphere and new computers have attracted more students than ever before to the reference area of the Library. We believe this has also encouraged them to be more willing to ask us for help and consider the Library as a resource when they might otherwise use only the Internet.

Judy C. Andrews(andrewsj@pdx.edu) is Coordinator for Government Information, Maps and Data SetsMichael Bowman(bvmi@odin.pdx.edu) is Coordinator of Reference and Information ServicesandDouglas M. Hanke(dhanke@pdx.edu) is Information Technology Consultant, Branford P. Millar Library, all at Portland State University, Portland, Oregon, USA.

ReferenceTyckoson, D.A. (2001), "What is the best model of reference service?", Library Trends, Vol. 50 No. 2, pp. 183-97.