The Big Move
Posted by: Rebecca Vnuk
At the “Rethinking the Reference Collection” program presented by Reference Books Bulletin at the recent ALA Annual Conference, several panelists and audience members mentioned what seems to be accelerating trend: moving reference books into the circulating stacks. As panelist Dave Tyckson noted, reference collections were first established in anticipation of high use, but “now that the use is low, let’s not set them aside.” It’s a question of providing better service.
A current discussion on LIBREF-L reveals several approaches to the big move to the circulating shelves, ranging from interfiling reference books with the rest of the collection but still not letting them to circulate, to making everything check-outable. If you’ve missed the discussion because you’re not a LIBREF-L subscriber, you can find it in the archives.
Of course, just because you move your reference books to the stacks doesn’t mean patrons will pay attention to them.
