JEROLD NELSON Faculty Awareness and Attitudes Toward Academic Library Reference

A survey of the faculties at six colleges was undertaken to measure the degree to which the libraries of those institutions were communi-cating with the faculty concerning the availability of various refer-ences services. The results demonstrated that the average faculty member was aware of barely half the services actually available. V ari-ables of academic rank, length of teaching, and amount of library and reference use were some of the factors shown to affect faculty awareness of Ubrary service. CoMMUNICATION BETWEEN THE FACULTY and the academic librarian seriously af-fects the functioning of academic li-brary service. Without adequate com-munication between these parties, the library's goals of educational service cannot be fully realized, the instruction-al and research needs of the faculty cannot be fully realized, the instruction-dent cannot benefit fully from the re-sources for education and enlighten-ment that the academic library has to offer. Whatever the quality and quantity of services provided by the library for faculty and students, those services will lack effectiveness if their availability is not made known. Communication between librarian and patron, although a critical problem, is not extensively covered by the litera-ture of librarianship. Most literature, dealing with this topic, however, only implies the existence of obstacles to ef-fective communication between the aca-I erold Nelson is an assistant professor a