If this researcher’s review of the literature is accurate, CIU is not alone in having neither a mission nor policies to undergird the maintenance of the reference collection. Allow me, then, to leave the reader with the following challenges:
- In order to be proactive in maintaining our reference collections, academic reference librarians must define the intended use the reference collections in their institutions are to receive (mission) and the principles by which they will select and deselect items for those collections.
- Once these are in place, perhaps the more enthusiastic among us will begin a use study of their own. It is this researcher’s fervent hope that having an automated ILS would make the more tedious aspects of this task far less odious. The CIU use study continues. Several librarians emphasized the helpfulness of the ready availability of use data throughout the five-year collection process. The CIU staff developed a different data collection method, but the end result will be the same. It would be interesting to compare CIU usage with that of other institutions that begin or continue their own reference collection use studies.
Bradford reports on a reference reshelving study using an ILS to record reshelving statistics.29 The procedure she describes seems nearly as tedious as that done at CIU. If academic reference librarians agree that reshelving studies are useful, perhaps a standard methodology can be developed so that our studies are true replications of each other.
Finally, we need to allow our policies to have an impact on how the reference collection is developed and maintained. The natural tendency is to complete the task of writing the policy and checking it off the to-do list, but not make any changes. This is perhaps the greatest challenge of all!
Acknowledgements
In addition to the CIU library staff, who endured more than colleagues should ever have to, I wish to acknowledge assistance from the following: Eugene Engeldinger, whose article inspired this research, graciously read and offered advice and encouragement. SHSU colleague Judy Ann Jerabek generously applied her excellent editorial skills as I revised the manuscript. Library school professor and friend Robert E. Molyneux listened, visited the site, read drafts, advised, and pestered me to finish.