Rachel Hess: junior in human development and family studies, accesses a computer in the library. Kyle Cooper / ASSISTANT PHOTO EDITOR
Every day, 4,976 people walk into the Ralph Brown Draughon Library, and 4,981 people make searches on Auburn’s licensed electronic databases.
Annually, Auburn’s library users download 5.23 million full text articles and access the library’s online catalog 2.9 million times.
According to students, the most important factor in all of these statistics is the one-on-one reference desk help, and the reference desk employees love the attention.
“We just like doing what we do,” said Nancy Noe, instruction coordinator, who works the reference desks along with 14 other full-time reference employees, four late-night working grad students and three part-time librarians.
According to Marcia L. Boosinger, associate dean for public services, students and online library users are finding it easier to answer quick questions via internet, which leaves longer and more personal consultation time for students to get help from the reference desk employees.
“Your teachers or parents may not want to help with your paper or finding sources, but we do,” said Robert Buchanan, physical sciences librarian.
“Almost all of us have subject concentrations that could help.”
According to Boosinger, access to the more than 200 online databases and all of the libraries and texts provides students with free research materials.
“We find that people begin their research and discover sources that are considered inadequate by their professors for their research on Google and the Internet,” Boosinger said. “So, we provide access to the equivalent of a universe of scholarly literature.”
But this literature does not come cheap.
Scholarly literature is a valuable commodity, and the library’s databases are full of information that has gone through the standard publishing process and is legitimate and reliable, Boosinger said.
Boosinger also said the materials budget given to the library for its database is currently $3.4 million annually. Taking the inflation factor into account and how literature grows more expensive each year, there are built-in requests for an even larger budget next year.
“The cost of information is always increasing,” Boosinger said. “But students are definitely using the databases either by computer, chat, or phone. The reference desk is always very busy.”
Students say they find the online libraries easier to use, but they do need occasional help.
“I’ve used them two or three times,” said Roxanne Forster, a freshman in pre-nursing. “I go to them when I have trouble finding good sources for the research on my psychology project.”
The reference desks are always “on call” to chat, answering 16,000 virtual questions annually and 85,000 annual reference questions.
“Working together in the one-on-one situation with students is the most rewarding,” Noe said. “And you never know what kind of question you’ll get, which we don’t mind at all. It’s never dull.”
