STATES NATIONAL STUDY WITH CURRENT EXAMPLES FROM THE FIELD

A 2002 ARL survey on reference statistics & assessments gives supporting evidence that many academic institutions are not completely satisfied with the usefulness of statistics gathered for reference services. The study revealed a situation in flux: "The study reveals a lack of confidence in current data collection techniques. Some dissatisfaction may be due to the fact that 77 % of responding libraries report that the number of reference transactions has decreased in the past three years. With many librarians feeling as busy as ever, some have concluded that the reference data collected does not accurately reflect librarian's level of activity". (ARL/SPEC/Kit268) It was with this sentiment that the READ Scale was developed. The READ Scale (Reference Effort Assessment Data) © is a six-point scale tool for recording vital supplemental qualitative statistics gathered when reference staff assist users with their inquiries or research-related activities by placing an emphasis on recording the effort / knowledge / skills / teaching etc utilized by library staff during a reference transaction. Institutional research grants enabled the authors to conduct a national study of the READ Scale at 1