Abstract:

    By looking at ways to better serve library users at a distance, depository libraries may be able to better serve not only their immediate constituency, but the potential users of their depository collection within their designated Congressional district. The methods discussed do not require additional technology, or software, but more an ability to figure out how to make use of existing technology to better communicate with library users at a distance. While the system described in this paper exists in an academic library setting, it could be readily adapted for use by virtually any depository library.

Introduction:

    Northern Arizona University has embraced over the last 10 years an ever more aggressive distance education program, serving students primarily in Arizona, but increasingly from an ever growing and diverse array of locations. Initially, NAU undertook this effort by planting (or partnering) branch campuses or offices around Arizona. Today, looking at the map of NAU IITV and computer lab locations will give an idea of the nature of the program as it was started, and to the extent it still exists today(1). Early distance educational models at NAU made use of local instructors or faculty, or having faculty travel from Flagstaff to the distance site to teach classes. Today that model still exists, but it is augmented by both IITV classes, and WebCT on-line Internet based classes as well. The challenge for the Cline Library historically has been to provide real library service to users at a distance regardless of the format of their class.

    In the context of this paper I will discuss two developmental paths- first the library's service to distance users, and second- the development the Cline Library's federal depository library from a stand alone unit to one integrated within the Reference and Bibliographic Services units of the Cline Library Northern Arizona University. Where these two paths converge is where we believe modern depository (and generic) distance service is going.

History of service to distance users at NAU:

    In 1987 the Cline Library established the Field Services Office. Field Services was at once a reference unit and an interlibrary loan unit for NAU's distance students. As originally configured, Field Services through a variety of means took library services into the field, that is to places where distance classes occurred. In those days before the Internet, this meant hauling paper copies of indexes and abstracts to the various field sites, and instructing users on how to perform literature searches in these titles. Once students located articles they needed, they contacted the Field Services office who would then obtain copies of materials students needed from the library's periodical collection, or through Interlibrary Loan. The arrival of PC and laptop technology helped in that CD-ROM based databases could be taken and set up at field sites or classrooms for and instruction session and student use. Field Services duplicated existing library services, providing them just to distance users from NAU's Distance Education initiative.

    Field Services began expanding its role in providing library services, and in the mid 1990s changed its name to Distributed Library Services to both reflect a change in expansion of services, but also the beginning of its integration into the Cline Library's other units. DLS began by making use of the library's Interlibrary Loan unit to acquire, duplicate and ship materials to distance students. DLS then, was better able to serve distance sites by focusing on on-site instruction, or distance phone (and later e-mail) reference service. What was occurring was that what was once a  unique service was becoming part of the library's regular service. In essence it was starting to not matter so much where the student was,  processes were being put in place to ensure that all library users were receiving more equitable treatment and service.

    This process began to accelerate with the library's Reference department assisting DLS in performing literature searches for students and performing on-site instruction sessions. Meanwhile, the library was rapidly moving to make more and more of its resources available via the Internet which made mediated searching redundant. With the acquisition of more and more on-line, full-text databases, library users were not as reliant upon the library to perform searches, or fax and mail articles.

    DLS essentially ceased to exist, its services being absorbed by the Reference Department in 2000. What this meant the initially to Reference was that the department had to incorporate distance instruction sessions into the normal ebb and flow of the department's bibliographic instruction requests, and incorporate the phone based former DLS reference service and e-mail into the Reference department's workflow. After some discussion, it was decided that as we already provided phone based Reference service at our Reference desk, that we would fold the distance phone service into that. The e-mail service, once sent only to a couple of reference librarians was moved to the desk as well during the summer of 2001. Meanwhile the library's Interlibrary Loan service (now called Document Delivery Services or DDS) moved to a web based request form allowing users to request materials from other libraries from any location. DDS expanded services to include shipping the materials housed in the library to NAU students living more that 40 miles from campus, thus making our collections available to our distance users in a way similar to our users based on or near campus. DDS had already instituted mailing or faxing of article material directly to users. Electronic delivery of article material had also been added by an initiative out of the Arizona State Library to make use of PCs and scanners to deliver electronically material via the Arial system.

    To some extent, through these efforts the library is trying to re-create the traditional role of library as information provider to students and faculty. We know now, and have known for awhile that setting patrons adrift to find their research via local libraries or the Internet has not served them well. The academic library's services have become nearly invisible for distance users. It is only through such programs that libraries can bring back and expand their patron base, and provide a quality service to all of their users(2).

    The final enhancement to our distance users was the creation of the library's Ask-A-Librarian service (www4.nau.edu/library/reference/aal/askalibrarian.asp). While largely just an out growth of the e-mail service for distance students, AAL now allows library users on campus, in Flagstaff, or at a distance to use a web based e-mail form to formulate their reference question, and send it to us at the Reference Desk. As the Reference desk is open and staffed everyday (more than 90 hours per week) we guarantee 24 hour response to questions. Those questions which we cannot answer immediately at the desk are referred to other library department, librarians or subject specialists as appropriate. For those more routine questions, we employ a set array of stationaries  covering interlibrary loans, renewals, basic research, etc. The aspect of the service users do not see is the web-based management system created in-house by our Library Technology Services unit that records the question, the user's contact information and status (NAU affiliated or not), and our response to the question. Additional information like time and date of the question and answer, and any referral data are recorded as well. The system allows the user to respond to the quality of the answer they receive by asking them if their question was in fact answered and by permitting them to ask for additional help. As this is an email based system, it is easy to track questions and answers as well as any questions we forward to specialists. The system automatically scrubs user information  from the database after two weeks, allowing us to keep track of questions and answers- a very useful training and analysis tool. One aspect of the service that needs some mention is the lack of a chat function. At this point AAL has purposely avoided chat. This is based upon a number of factors: service hours, experience with current commercial chat products, and technology issues with distance students.

    As of February, Ask-A-Librarian became the platform for electronic reference service for the library's Special Collections and Archives unit. While this is not a huge change on one hand, it means that the Reference department's database of questions and answers is now becoming the library's database of questions and answers. As we frequently forwarded more specific questions to other departments e-mail, now their responses will be incorporated into a larger data file.

Documents at the Cline Library, Northern Arizona University:

    The predecessor of NAU was the Arizona State Teachers College. It was granted depository status by Senator Henry Ashurst in 1937, making it one of the older depositories in the state. When I began my term in documents in 1989, the depository collection had been a more or less an independent unit. It did its own processing, and while staffed with a Reference department librarian, Documents maintained its own service desk, and phone in a separate area of the library, as well as its own staff of student employees for refilling and general maintenance. None of the document material was in the catalog and circulation was faintly uncommon. The item profile since 1990 has stayed at around 60%, coming down from a high of 75% in 1975. Like many depository libraries, the Cline Library was well versed in the tradition of how depository libraries are to be organized and operated. Certainly even a casual perusal of the Instructions to Depository Libraries, or the Federal Depository Library Manual makes clear that depositories can exist as stand alone entities- either a library unto itself, or a library within a library.

    Working with the Head of Reference we started out to accomplish two goals: make the documents collection more prominent, and thus provide better service, and; reduce the number of service point hours Reference needed to provide. The first step was to close the documents service desk, and shift documents reference service and documents circulation to the Reference desk. We likely were unaware of he full ramifications of our decisions at the time, but moving the documents bibliographic record material into the catalog and training the rest of the Reference staff to be proficient with documents laid the groundwork for vastly enhanced documents service. Training Reference staff was intensive and challenging inasmuch as the department was used to simply referring any and all documents related questions to a single person in the past. The issue of training is taken quite seriously in Reference. Aside from hosting a documents event once a year for state (and occasionally larger) groups of depository library staff, regular training sessions on a variety of issues occur several times each semester.

    The initial records load into the OPAC was accomplished via a Marcive record purchase, after that point, our Bibliographic Services unit cataloged each incoming paper document. Circulation of documents increased by 1000% virtually overnight which in turn lead to Access Services taking the circulation chores over from Reference.

    With the advent of the Internet, the library's catalog became available to anyone with access to a PC and Internet access. The informational pages we put up to help guide users to documents (www2.nau.edu/~libei-p/info/ref_govinfo.cfm) had largely the same effect of advertising the library's status as a depository, and providing contact information which assured that in fairly short order that we were providing a "distance" documents service, albeit on a small scale.

    The effect if integrating Documents service into the Reference desk environment greatly enhanced the likelihood that a library user needing assistance in obtaining a document, or getting documents related information would be successful. Combining the effect of adding documents records to the OPAC and providing greater training for Reference staff brought a huge increase in the use of documents, and document circulation.

    Across the 1990's we made concerted efforts with our Bibliographic Services unit to ensure than all formats were being cataloged and added to the OPAC, likewise significant pre-1976 documents (USGS bulletins, professional papers, Forest Service monographic series and local and regional titles have been cataloged. Significantly, all documents related processing and cataloging are streamlined into the units in Bibliographic Services which handle monographs, periodicals, and other formats. This has sped up processing and cataloging. Additionally, those of us in Reference who directly oversee the collection have taken internships in Bibliographical Services so we can learn about the process and help with backlogs, pre-1976, or non-depository materials.

    The next significant change in documents usage came from a number of promotional efforts and experiments. Conventional wisdom dictates that two good ways to promote one's collection is to perform speaker duty for civic and other groups, discussing documents, and explaining their value. I can attest that it is difficult to convince groups that documents can be interesting, and that actually having talked a few groups into hearing about documents, found little or no impact on usage. I tried contacting our local U.S. Congressional Representatives, but generally found their interests lay more in giving any questions from the public from their regional offices to their Washington office staff than making use of documents as a resource. Book reviews of documents for the local media are often fun to do, but only generate interest on rare occasions. Titles like the Roswell Report: Fact Versus Fiction in the New Mexico Desert, and Roswell Report: Case Closed did bring in little spurts of business, but they were not sustained.

    The two best promotional tools were large scale public education programs performed in Arizona. In 1997 and 1998 the Arizona State Library put forward a series of "on site" educational programs called "DocsTour" which encouraged those of us deemed as experts to go to smaller depositories (or potential depositories) and help educate the library staffs, government officials and civic bodies about the values of their collections. If nothing else, the road trips were fun. The Arizona Depository Library Council has also sponsored meetings with depository library staffs from New Mexico, and other states, and the Arizona Library Association has held summer documents training events at the Cline Library as well. The other significant tool for documents development is the Web. Well constructed web pages do more to promote documents than just about anything else. Examples of successful pages that have launched by the Cline Library include:

• Cline Library Government Information, (www2.nau.edu/~libei-p/info/ref_govinfo.cfm)
• New Government Publications List(s), (www4.nau.edu/library/reference/govinfo/sbhotd.html)
• and even fun projects like the 100 Best Documents list. (jan.ucc.nau.edu/~rse/y2kdocs100.htm)

Where Documents and Distance Service collide:

  In June of 2002, the Cline Library ventured a new public service called "Ask-A-Librarian". Generally this is not a huge technological leap over older e-mail based reference service offered at NAU or many other institutions. Essentially for Ask-A-Librarian we expanded phone and e-mail service previously reserved for NAU's distance students and made the service available to anyone with a phone or Internet access. While this is a generic service, it brings in quite a bit of business on a daily basis. We guarantee 24 hour response, and strive to match the user (NAU affiliated, or not) with appropriate tools. NAU affiliates have access to our databases, even at a distance. For those not affiliated the library relies on quick information resources, and of course, the Internet. This is where documents either from agency web sites and databases, or GPO Access, Thomas or other tools really help to provide quality service. Our service has grown in service to students and faculty on campus, and then in the category we call far flung. While we seem to be doing a measurable and surprising international service with Afghanistan, Australia, India, Pakistan, and the U.K., most of our questions come from within Arizona, and from NAU affiliated users. For users at great distances we often are making referrals back to libraries more local to the patron than we are.

    Perhaps it was the function of being the only large depository in our region of the Southwest, but historically, we always had cases of documents type reference questions from people at a distance. Certainly, as many of NAU's distance classes are based from the College of Education, many of Ask-A-Librarian's questions had a quasi documents quality in that they dealt with ERIC publications and material derived from the U.S. Department of Education. Since the development of the current Ask-A-Librarian service, the number of questions monthly has grown from around a 1,000 questions per year to the older e-mail Field Services/Distributed Library Services service, to 1,000 questions for the period of June to December 2002, to 3,298 during the period of January through December 1, 2003. In looking at the monthly reports, there are between 6-10 questions on average monthly which could be considered specifically of a documents nature, and another 10-20 questions which could be answered either from federal material or by referring Ask-A-Librarian patrons to federal web sites, but could also be answered by other resources. We anticipate this number will grow as we incorporate the Ask-A-Librarian link and request form into more documents related web pages.

 Conclusions:

    Like the long growing period that led up to the development of "Ask-A-Librarian", the amount of work needed within the library to make documents accessible is not accomplished overnight, nor without the help of many. In truth, the parallel developments of "Ask-A-Librarian" and our documents service have lasted more than 10 years. In fact, the service improvements of one are linked to the other, but not in direct and obvious ways.

    What we discovered about documents over the last ten years that really worked for us at the Cline library was that we needed to incorporate and integrate documents into the existing library structure, whether it is reference service, processing, cataloging or  other basic functions. The process of segregation and specialization  that seems common (and natural) in the documents realm worked against us. We were always training the service staff, or the cataloger or the processor, and were left high and dry if when they were gone or left the library. Currently we have 9 librarians with good documents  knowledge in the Reference department, one documents subject specialist reference librarian, one reference specialist, and 3 cataloging librarians, and their staff of 5 who all work on documents, along with a few fine student workers who also look after the Reference collection.

    The Ask-A-Librarian genesis is similar. At its inception, any support for distance students was limited to a single department within the library with limited staff, hours and resources. In order to succeed and grow, Field Service and later Distributed Library Services began to absorb and acquire more staff and librarians to take care of their distance students. As that service was mainstreamed,  shipment of materials shifted to Document Delivery Services, or instruction and reference service became shared with the larger Reference department, to the total dissolution of Distributed Library Services into Reference, greater efficiency was gained. All of these changes permitted a greater expansion of reference service to a point that it could absorb the distance instruction, and documents, and provide an expanded e-mail reference service to virtually anyone. The ultimate conclusion is any library service enhancement can ultimately benefit those who use our documents collections from near or afar meaning that we are not only providing greater service to our immediate users and distance students and faculty, but the public as well.

    Th case of the Cline Library is not unique, other institutions are applying similar concepts to the services they provide(3). Some of this clearly is aimed at revitalizing the value of libraries and services they provide. The focus here specifically is to revitalize the value of the depository program, by makinging it as available as possible to as many as possible

Barron, Brette B., "Distant and Distributed Learners are Two Sides of the Same Coin"., Computers in Libraries, January 2002, Vol. 22. (1), pp.24-9.

Coffman, Steve.,"Distance Education and Virtual Reference: Where are we Headed?", Computers in Libraries, April 2001, Vol. 21 (4) pp. 20-25.

Wolpert, Ann.,  "Service to Remote Users: Marketing the Library's Role"., Library Trends, Summer '98, Vol. 47 (1), pp. 21-43.