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| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Recurso educativo Open Access |
| Language: | en |
| Published: |
1990
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED322929 |
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Table of Contents:
- An Unobtrusive Operations Study of the Orem Public Library for Referral, Accuracy, and Consistency. King, C. Yvonne And Others Administrative Policy Evaluation Criteria Job Performance Operations Research Organizational Objectives Personnel Evaluation Public Libraries Questionnaires Reference Services Referral Retraining User Needs (Information) User Satisfaction (Information) A study was undertaken at the request of the Orem (Utah) Public Library administration to identify the library's strengths and weaknesses, and to measure how close they were to achieving their target goal of 100% effectiveness in the areas of referral, accuracy, and consistency, in order to improve the quality of reference services. Data were collected using unobtrusive measures. Proxy library users posed each ready reference and referral question to three different reference librarians to check for consistency. Of the full- and part-time librarians at Orem, one had a Masters of Library Science degree, one had a Masters of English, five had four-year bachelors degrees, and one had an associate degree. The questions were asked over the course of 15 days so that each librarian would be asked at least two ready reference questions and two referral questions. The library achieved an overall accuracy rate of 59.2%, which corresponds closely with rates reported in similar studies. Comments and observations from proxies suggest that a lack of awareness may exist among reference librarians as to the information contained in the reference collection, and it is suggested that librarians may benefit from regular in-house training to increase their familiarity with the reference collection and outside sources. (17 references) (SD)