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The purpose of this article is to describe the ongoing process of weeding, streamlining, and transforming a very large, print‐based reference collection at the University of Louisville's William F. Ekstrom Library, focusing in particular on the various issues involved in developing a more timely, focused, and electronic‐oriented collection.

Over the years, the Ekstrom Library reference collection evolved into a large, neglected, print‐based collection that ignored current space needs and user preferences for digital sources. To address this, the reference department developed a new, cooperative approach to reference collection development and weeding to improve the user experience and address serious space issues.

To achieve a more usable reference collection, the reference department needed to rethink the philosophy behind the collection and completely rewrite the collection development policy. These changes have facilitated the creation of a smaller, more user‐friendly collection that embraces the digital environment.

The article highlights problems and approaches to refocusing a reference collection in a time of transition, as physical library spaces continue to evolve and the value of a traditional reference collection appears increasingly uncertain.

The Reference Use Study Group of the University of Toledo’s William S. Carlson Library utilized a questionnaire to determine how faculty used the reference collection, as well as their reasons for using it. This questionnaire was part of a comprehensive study of local reference collection use that employed a variety of evaluation methods. Some of the findings corroborated those identified in the literature. The results of this component of the study, as well as other components, will be used to weed the collection, to improve collection management, and may suggest strategies to develop channels of communication with the faculty. This article provides a description of the methodology used to query faculty, selected questionnaire results, brief analysis of these results and a copy of the questionnaire.

Many traditional library practices are currently being re‐examined in response to the technological changes that are taking place in libraries. Additionally, pervasive budget reductions require the scrutiny of service patterns in an effort to find those that most efficiently and best serve the user. No area is more affected by these pressures than public services—both technology and budget restrictions are challenging traditional reference service. Asking why we do what we do in regard to the ready reference collection is a good place to start rethinking our libraries' practices.

This paper aims to explore the changing role of the reference collection in learning commons at Association of Research Libraries (ARL) member libraries.

A 15-question survey was sent to managers at academic research libraries with membership in the ARL. Respondents were asked about their learning commons and reference collections. To increase the sample size, the researchers conducted phone interviews with a random sample of individuals from the same target population, utilizing the same questions and generated additional results.

Most respondents had or were planning learning commons for their libraries. The role of reference collections varied. Of those who had retained a print reference collection, the majority believed them to be little-used. The researchers believe this may signal an end to a formerly cherished idea: the primacy of the reference collection within a library learning space.

This study involved a random sample of public service managers at North American ARL academic libraries. While the sample is believed to be representative of the broader population, findings may not be generalizable to all ARL libraries or to other academic libraries.

Many papers have been written about information or learning commons spaces and their distinctive elements. Others have discussed the changing role of reference collections. This paper is unique in examining the changing role of the reference collection within learning commons spaces.

Librarians have lavished years of scholarship on the subject of collection development. The rewarding process of organizing and building a relevant and competitive collection is one of librarianship's more rewarding jobs.

Explains how reference staff undertook an assessment of the 30,000+ volume collection in an attempt to determine whether materials in the Carlson Library reference collection are useful to faculty, staff and students. Culled from periodical use studies, several qualitative and quantitative assessment methods were identified: a count of every item physically handled; short in‐house surveys administered randomly to willing library patrons; and a questionnaire distributed to a group of instructional staff. The assessment, which began in 1994, continues, and techniques are repeated as necessary. Additional techniques, such as in‐house interviews, will be implemented, giving the reference staff valuable information on the users and the uses of the reference collection. Maintains that the intermediate results have already impacted the materials selected, and predicts that the final results will aid in the development of a current reference collection management policy.

It has been suggested that “space and artifacts constitute systems of communication which organizations build up within themselves” (Gagliardi, 1992a, b, p. vi) and reflect the cultural life within that organization. This is a study of how the “landscape” of a public library (“Library X”), as an information retrieval system, relates to the values of the people who created it. The efforts here are geared towards understanding the physical instantiation of institutional culture and, more specifically, institutional values as they are reflected through the artifact.

The purpose of this article was to present the results of a quantitative analysis that compared usage levels between an e-reference collection that has experienced continual updated content and growth and an e-reference collection that has not experienced any recent changes. The aim of the study was to determine quantitatively if e-reference collections with dynamic content experience greater levels of usage compared to e-reference collections that are static in both size and content.

E-reference data were separated into a dynamic collection and a static collection. Usage for e-reference belonging to the dynamic collection was compared to usage of e-reference belonging to the static collection. The number of e-reference was obtained by simple count. Additional statistics tracked include the number of viewings. A linear regression analysis was used to determine the strength of the linear relationship between collection size and usage.

Results indicate that e-reference collections that continue to grow in both size and content also continue to experience year-to-year increases in usage. E-reference collections that remain static in size and content experienced a decline in usage. A linear regression analysis indicates the existence of an extremely strong linear relationship between dynamic content and usage. A weaker linear relationship was calculated for static content.

To this author’s knowledge, this research is the first to systematically and quantitatively compare usage levels between e-reference titles from growing collections to collections that have not had any new titles added recently.

The history of the public library is long and rich, and continues to reflect this institution's initial mission: to respond to the needs of an evolving democratic society. From its early days as a subscription service for the middle-class, through its evolution to become an educational site for the lower-classes and new immigrants, the public library has served as a touch-stone for urban industrial society in North America (Lerner, 1998, p. 138; Shera, 1974). Over the past century, public libraries have evolved to respond to the growing needs of the communities they serve and continue to do so with recent advances in technologies (such as DVDs, electronic books, the Internet, etc.), and with a more global outlook on the ways that people seek and share information. Indeed, the public library's constituents today are exceedingly diverse, including children and adults from a broad range of socio-economic, cultural, and educational backgrounds, all of whom seek information for a variety of personal and work-related purposes. The fact that public libraries have been fulfilling patrons' information needs for well over a century is a testament to their enduring success and versatility as information providers, and also points to the overall effectiveness of public librarians as intermediaries in the provision process.

Telephone directories have been an integral part of most public and academic libraries for nearly a century. Telephone directories represent an anomaly among library collections; known to virtually all users, they nevertheless often go unrecognized when librarians discuss reference sources. The purpose of this study is twofold: first, to examine the history of telephone directory collections; second, to describe and analyze a survey of telephone directory collection use.