They Need to Know Us and We Need to Know Them: Preparing Today's Students for Tomorrow's Reference

Abstract

Planning for sustainable reference services requires instituting practices today to help build our clientele for tomorrow. This means academic librarians must endeavor to truly understand our student user community and their research behaviors and motivations for seeking research assistance. Academic librarians must help users understand what reference service is and how it can support their academic success. This article discusses designing for improvements in the user experience, identifies three things reference departments can do to improve student awareness of reference services, and identifies three things reference librarians can do to improve their understanding of the student population.

Keywords:

• students
• reference
• academic library
• user experience