Bring Us Your Questions

posted 12/16/2009
We love to answer questions. It's what we're trained to do. It's what we're paid to do. We don't care if it's a straightforward question, like what is the state capital of Connecticut. We don't care if it takes a little more time, like what are the names and contacts of all the churches in the county. Sometime we can find the answer immediately, sometimes we will have to take your contact information and get back to you with the answer. But believe me, it's what we do. It's what we want to do.

We recently tallied the number of questions asked in a one week period. Libraries across the nation actually do this and on a regular basis. Most commonly, it's used as a way for libraries to see how patrons are using the library and help determine staffing levels.

Typically libraries tally questions in two categories: directional questions and reference questions. Directional questions are questions that are simply about using the library facility including questions such as the ever popular "Where's the bathroom?" or "What time does the library close tonight?" Reference questions are little different and come with a wide range. The definition of a reference question is one which "library staff recommends, interprets, evaluates, instructs and/or uses one or more information resources to help others to meet particular information needs." Believe me, I didn't make that one up; that is a commonly agreed upon definition to ensure libraries across the nation are reporting comparable numbers.

Tallying reference questions was new for us, so honestly we weren't very good at the task. Beyond it just being new and different, we are so used to answering questions that half the time we don't even notice we are doing it.

For the week of December 1st we conservatively answered 291 reference questions and 168 directional questions. I'm not going to report these numbers in our annual state report as I know they are significantly lower than our actual, but we have paved the way to do this again and record more accurate numbers.

Perhaps the most important thing I hope everyone gets out of this is that the library is the place to come if you have a question! Call us, email us, or stop in. We're ready to find your answer.

Laura Tretter
Director
San Juan Island Library
360.378.2798
ltretter@sjlib.org

editor@sanjuanislander.com

About Us | Advertising Info | Contact Us | Privacy Policy

Related pages

Previous columns

Bring Us Your Questions