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The Evolving and Expanding Service Landscape Across Academic Libraries #blogjune

The article The Evolving & Expanding Service Landscape Across Academic Libraries talks about how reference questions being in decline means that some academic libraries are providing alternative spaces for questions and answers - but as hosts, not in the traditional Reference enquiry format. 

"There seems to be another type of service layer emerging. I think of it as pop-up boutiques or highly specialized services that appear temporary to offer very personalized help."

"You can see some commonality. Interdisciplinary. Intrinsic. Drop-in sessions. Project-oriented. Problem-based. Informal. Conversational. Personalized. Open-ended. Open to everyone." 

This links back to David Lanke’s concept of the mission of the librarian - "The mission of librarians is to improve society through facilitating knowledge creation in their communities" – with the focus on facilitation/enabling (note – this is about our individual mission as librarians, not the mission of the organisation we serve). 

The article also has some great comments with links to other articles about spaces in Academic Libraries. 

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ASofia_university_library.jpg



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