Education Commons^™

Reference Resilience: Balancing Sustainability With Customized And Effective Research Support, Jennifer Adams, Laura Hibbler

Staff publications

As we see fewer "walk-up" questions at the reference desk, our librarians faced difficult questions about how best to focus research support for Holy Cross students. While so-called 'ready-reference' information is now available online, the expanse of information on the Internet combined with the increasing complexity of tools like research databases, pointed to a need for a different kind of research assistance which is more in-depth and focuses on effective search strategies. For many libraries, including ours, this calls for shifting our priorities and hours from traditional time at the reference desk to other, more-personalized activities such as meeting with …