Rick has a good point. What defines public service? Traditionally, the terms "Public Services" and "Technical Services" have erroneously created a 'great divide' within the library environment. The truth is that if the work you perform provides a direct or even somewhat indirect benefit to the students, it is just as much a public service as Reference. In order for Reference librarians to be able to help a student use Westlaw or Lexis Nexis or SciFinder or even Academic Search Complete, someone had to evaluate the license agreement, set up trial access, produce or oversee the production of the purchase order, track the expenditure, etc. It is not difficult to demonstrate the direct benefit to students.
Usage statistics appear to reflect much more activity than the foot traffic in Reference can explain. Even declining circulation statistics exceed the number of Reference transactions in a given period of time. In other words, students are deriving direct benefit from the immediate availability of the purchased and/or licensed materials/content. These resources did not magically appear out of nowhere.
In my opinion, both Cataloging and Acquisitions departments perform work that directly benefits students. (Reference folks would have a hard time helping students to locate research materials without the accurate details supplied in Cataloging!)
I am not certain my assertions above reflect the intent of Rick's message -- and apologies to Rick if I have done injustice thereunto -- but it does bother me when this misleading distinction is used for questionable purpose(s).
--
Sarah Tusa, Associate Professor
Coordinator of Collection Development
& Acquisitions
Mary & John Gray Library
Lamar University
(409 880-8125
From: acqnet-l_at_lists.ibiblio.org
To: acqnet-l_at_lists.ibiblio.org
Sent: Monday, August 26, 2013 12:35:11 PM
Subject: Re: [ACQNET-L] Is Technical Services a public service?
My next question is how would you argue that Technical Services is indeed a public service?
FWIW, I would say that nothing we do in any area of the library has meaning or value except to the degree that it helps our patrons. If you can't justify the value of your department in terms of service to the public, you probably can't justify the existence of the department. This is true regardless of whether the people who staff the department interact directly with members of the public — after all, the folks in Reference only interact with a tiny fraction of the public they serve.
---
Rick Anderson
Assoc. Dean for Scholarly Resources & Collections
Marriott Library, University of Utah
Desk: (801) 587-9989
Cell: (801) 721-1687
rick.anderson_at_utah.edu
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Received on Tue Aug 27 2013 - 17:54:36 EDT