Guests: Sharon Lamont (User Services), Melanie Watkins

1. Minutes of the Previous Meeting (October 31, 2000)

Accepted as amended.
2. Business Arising

Item 3: Printing and Downloading from Public Workstations

It was decided that ISR Information Desk staff should all receive a copy of item 3 as a separate e-mail message.

ACTION: Doug will excerpt item 3 and send it to all information desk staff.

3. Permanent Recorder

Beginning with the next meeting Rose Koebel will be ISMC’s regular recorder. Mary Stanley and Esther Millar will review this activity in 6 months.
4. User Services and "reference service"

Discussion was organized as follows:
• Determine and define what a reference question is.
• Determine what User Services staff should do to respond to reference questions presented at the circulation desks when the information desks are staffed.
• Determine what User Services staff should do to respond to reference questions presented at the circulation desks when the information desks are not staffed.
• Determine whether or not there are issues associated with staff at the information desks responding to circulation related questions and if there are, determine what to do about those issues.

Discussion began during this meeting and will continue at the next one. During this meeting, we agreed to the following as a definition of a reference question.

"A reference question is any question asked by a user when trying to identify resources that contain information that he/she needs. Identifying resources includes finding call number or an items' location in some electronic format such as CD-ROMs or the Web."

Discussion about how User Services staff should respond to reference questions focused on the need to find a way of balancing the desire to ensure that users are always referred to the information desk, so that they can receive expert assistance, with the desire to always provide some level of assistance to those who may not want to take the time to go to an information desk, especially if that desk is busy. We agreed that User Services will train staff as follows:

• When users ask a for reference assistance at a circulation desk, staff will ask if the user has a call number.
• If the user has a call number, staff will direct them to the appropriate floor.
• If the user doesn’t have a call number and is looking for a book by author or title, staff will use some judgement to determine whether to answer the question or to refer them to the information desk. If, for example, it seems clear that the user knows precisely what author or title he or she is looking for, staff may look it up for them. In making this decision staff may also take into account how busy the information desk is at the time.
• Whenever User Services provide assistance with a reference question, they will indicate that further assistance is available at the information desk.