This blog post is a personal reflection on the “reference section” of libraries in general and is placed here in the WRSLAI blog in order to hopefully engage in a health lively debate on this issue. I’m eager to see what other libraries in the West and beyond think so feel free to comment.
The issue of the reference section and space has come up recently in my library and due to the vast amount of information on the internet, personally, I’m wondering do we need it?Now indeed I’m not saying get rid of it entirely – not everyone has access to the internet but I’m wondering do we really need 10 encyclopedias on the one topic? How does one “weed” the reference section if your weeding policy is based on usage statistics? Do you sit beside the reference items with a pen and paper and count how many people refer to it each day? With regard to dictionaries – do we only keep the most recently published so that new words like “selfie” are included??
Does your library keep rare expensive books in the reference section as they cannot be borrowed? Is this efficient? Should they be kept in a special collections area where only trained users can handle these items?
As I’m relatively new to the library community maybe all my questions have been answered. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this issue? What does your library do??
Image courtesy of http://www.riverskitchens.com/remodeling/measuring.htm
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