The Age of the Internet:

The Decline of Reference Services in Public Libraries

Nicole L Klein

Wayne State University

6120: Access to Information

Hermina G.B. Anghelescu

4/9/2024
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The Age of the Internet: The Decline of Reference Services in Public Libraries

Abstract

This paper will discuss the decline in reference services in public libraries. Reference

services in public libraries are headed towards obsolescence. This is due to the widespread use of

the Internet on personal computers and other electronic devices. This is also due to search

engines having replaced the function of reference librarians in everyday life. This paper will also

discuss the evolution of reference services in the ‘Information Age’ and how reference librarians

in public library spaces can attempt to counter the coming obsolescence of reference services in

public libraries.
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Author Neil Gaiman once said that “Google can bring you back 100,000 answers, a

librarian can bring you back the right one.” (Librarianship Studies & Information Technology).

This is the heart of what reference librarians do. Reference librarians are factfinders. They

expend every effort to answer any question with accuracy unmatched by any Internet search

engine. Reference services have been a vital part of every library. In the sixth edition of

Reference Services: An Introduction, Wong and Saunders state that when public libraries first

came into being, there was no formal system for answering patron questions. Reference services

naturally arose out of a need for them. (Sauders et. al. 2020 pp.7) Where public libraries were the

birthplace of reference services in the 1800’s, they have seen significant decline in the 2020’s.

Through observation and research, I have concluded that the era of public reference librarians is

ending. This is not to say that reference services are a thing of the past in all libraries. Reference

services are alive and well in academic settings. Public libraries no longer do the kind of detailed

research required of the librarians of yesteryear. The widespread availability of the Internet on

personal electronic devices his likely the culprit

What are Reference Services?

The Reference and User Association (RUSA) defines reference service in libraries as:

“providing assistance by using expertise in response to an information need.” (RUSA 2021)

Reference librarians are librarians who exist to meet and/or fulfill an information need. Wendel

Johnson writes that “Prior to the Civil War, librarians often were viewed as custodians of

books….” (Johnson 2011), thus were not seen by patrons as a resource they could use for help.

Johnson writes that “The generally recognized starting point for the history of reference

librarianship in the United States was an address delivered by Samuel Green of the Worcester

Public Library in 1876”. In this address, Samuel Green assumes that ‘scholarly’ individuals have

all the skill necessary to utilize a library to its fullest capacity while “Modest men in the humbler

walks of life, and well-trained boys and girls, need encouragement before they become ready to

say freely what they want.” (Pena & Green 2006). It was this need to serve the layman from

which reference services arose.

What do reference librarians do? Reference librarians use their information seeking skills

to connect library patrons with the information they need. Reference librarians also answer

questions on how to use library resources and help patrons find these resources in the library

(directional reference). Reference librarians also perform readers’ advisory which, according to

Saunders and Wong “…is the process of recommending titles, particularly fiction, for leisure

reading to library users.” (Saunders et. al. 2020 pp. 13). Saunders and Wong outline other

functions of reference librarians, including, but not limited to, research consulting and marketing.

(Saunders et. al. 2020 pp 13-16). From my observation, public libraries rarely receive research-

oriented reference questions. They instead assist patrons by providing answers to directional

reference questions and help patrons access library system resources.

Enter the Internet

Before the ‘Information age’, librarians served the function that search engines do now.

Librarians were the go-to means of connecting the public with the information they needed. Beth
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Namachchivaya writes that “Reference services were provided primarily in‐person – patrons

came into the library to ask questions of librarians who staffed reference desks.”

( Namachchivaya 2012) The Internet as we know it has come to supplant reference librarians as

a source of answers to any questions. This wasn’t always the case. In its infancy, the Internet was

not the powerhouse of information exchange that its users are currently familiar with.

According to June Jamrich Parsons’ New Perspectives on Computer Concepts;

Comprehensive 21st Edition, the Internet was devised as a means of connecting computers across

long distances, beginning with a network called ARPANET. (Parsons 2022 pp. 173). Where

ARPANET was designed to connect computers at ULCA, the Stanford Research Institute, the

University of Utah, and the University of California at Santa Barbara, its technology would be

utilized to create larger networks that connected greater amounts of computers (Parsons 2022

pp.173) Today, the Internet is the world’s largest network, connecting “an estimated 50 billion

devices and more than 4 billion users” (Parsons 2022 pp. 174). What differentiates the Internet

and the World Wide Web? The Internet is the network connecting all these devices while the

Web is “ …a collection of HTML documents, images, videos, and sound files that can be linked

to each other and accessed over the internet…” (Parsons 2022 pp. 243). The Internet is home to

search engines, which Parsons writes, are “…computer program(s) designed to help people

locate information on the web by formulating queries consisting of one or more words called

keywords or search terms.” (Parsons 2022 pp. 289) Search engines have fundamentally reshaped

how people seek out and access information. The effects of search engines have bled into the

library, leading them to be one of the many factors that have contributed to the decline in

reference services in public libraries.

Where librarians were once the go-to sources of information for researchers and the

general public, search engines such as Google have supplanted reference librarians as the first

place people turn to in order to have their questions answered. Search engines like Google have

had a visible effect on everyone from students in academic libraries to adults browsing public

libraries. Helen Georgas, in her series of papers on the impact of Google in libraries articulates

the fears of librarians over how Google has affected their work. She writes that “Even though

librarians use and are proponents of Google, there are, as James Caufield puts it, “fears that the

public is coming to see Google not simply as a competitor to libraries but as a substitute for

them.” Librarians know that students appreciate Google’s ease of use, but they also know that it

can come at the price of core library values such as quality and privacy.” (Georgas 2013).

Georgas studied the effects of how students search for information on Google versus how

they search for information using library search tools. Half the students were asked to search for

information via Google and half were told to use a federated search tool provided by the library.

More than half of the students reported that Google was easier to use and when asked which they

preferred to use. They gave her comments such as “Google is smarter at finding what you’re

searching for. If you spell it wrong, it knows what you mean whereas the library search isn’t as

effective. Google is also easier to manipulate in terms of putting in different word combinations

to find what you’re looking for. The library search seems pretty rigid and hasn’t changed much

since middle school.” (Georgas 2013) . In a follow-up study conducted two years later, Georgas

found that “Using Google, twenty-nine students (96.7 percent) found a book they deemed

relevant to their research topic. One student (3.3 percent) named an article published in a

scholarly journal, rather than a book. Of the twenty-nine participants who had correctly

identified a book, only ten provided complete citations (author, title, publisher, year). The
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average citation completeness score was 3.07 (out of 4).” (Georgas 2015). With students

growing increasingly reliant on Google to do research, how can reference librarians hope to

compete?

Observations in the Field

I have observed the decline of reference services in public libraries. Observing a local

public library, I witnessed how underutilized the reference desk has become. This library was a

moderately-sized library. This library was part of a county library system encompassing 34 local

libraries. The staff at this location was comprised of a branch manager and two MLIS-holding

librarians working beneath them. The other 7 staff members were assistants and volunteer

coordinators. This is consistent with Julie Sweeney’s assessment of reference services at small,

medium, and large libraries, as she stated that at most of the libraries she researched “The range

of headcount for librarians was 0–11 with a mean of 3, median of 2, and mode of 1.”(Sweeney

2024) The library was located in a wealthy area with a clientele consisting mostly of white and

southeast Asian women and, after the two nearby schools let out, middle and high school

students. The reference desk fortunately was still intact. It was a large central hub that was very

visible to patrons, located right at the library’s entrance.

How often did patrons at this library utilize the reference desk? From my observation,

very sparingly. Most of the reference questions library patrons asked were directional. They

wanted to know where books, computers or other materials were located and how to find them.

The other most common type of reference question these librarians received were reader’s

advisory questions. These were questions usually asked by parents of young readers seeking age

and reading-level appropriate materials for their children to read. After interviewing the branch
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manager and both librarians beneath them, I learned that research oriented ready-reference

questions seldom get asked of the librarians here. They claimed that research assistance and

research-oriented questions were the stuff of larger academic libraries. This was not entirely true.

There were a few instances of ‘ready-reference’ questions being asked of the librarians.

One librarian claimed that a patron wanted to know the score of a Georgia Tech baseball game

that took place in 1968, requiring the branch manager to contact Georgia Tech and the opponent

university’s archives for information about the game. The branch manager also described another

instance where a patron needed instructions on how to make a cello, requiring them to contact a

library in Germany for a copy of the blueprints. Unfortunately, questions such as these are the

exception at public libraries, not the norm.

The Future of Reference Services at Public Libraries

With the use of reference services declining at public libraries, what will the future hold?

One cannot be certain until it comes to pass, but looking at the state of reference services in

public libraries does make predictions of its future easier. As Internet use has become

commonplace and artificial intelligence programs enter our daily lives, automation will enter

library spaces and make reference desks a thing of the past. This is already the case in Aligarh,

India. In a study conducted in 2014, researcher found “…that 3 of 4 libraries are partially

automated, with the exception of Al-Barkaat which is completely automated.” (Anas et. Al.

2014). Another study conducted in 2023 claimed that “A vast majority of respondent libraries

(90%) reported that they have one or more reference desks. Only 6% said that they do not have a

reference desk and 6% have a single reference desk, or some locations with reference desks and

some without.” (Saunders et. Al. 2023) In this same study, participating libraries reported a wide
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range of how many questions these reference desks received per day and “…one system reported

a low of 25…” (Saunders et. Al. 2023)

Can reference services in public libraries be saved from obsolescence? There are options

that can stem this decline. The most prevalent of these is virtual reference. This is where

reference questions are answered via email or chat room. The library I visited employed this

service, with every staff member assigned to run the reference chat room once per week. Another

option for public libraries is mobile reference, answering reference questions via mobile devices.

“With more and more users wanting reference information on the move, the provision of SMS

(short message service or “texting”) reference service is growing in academic libraries” (Anbu &

Kataria, 2016). As more people turn to search engines to have their questions answered, public

libraries can offer information literacy courses. As Sonnet Ireland put it “Patrons who are not

currently in school can be more vulnerable to misinformation.” and simply searching the internet

for information offers no means of distinguishing the two. (Ireland et. Al. 2017). Libraries could

also promote these services so that patrons are aware of their existence.

Conclusion

Reference services were the product of public libraries seeking to meet the information

needs of their patrons. Where they were once an essential part of the public library experience,

they are now under or even unutilized by public library patrons. In the age of the Internet, the

general public’s questions have an answer that can be found at the stroke of a keyboard. There

are ways to stem the decline of reference services in public libraries. Reference librarians can

turn to answering questions online or utilize mobile devices. Public libraries can distinguish

themselves from search engines by offering information literacy courses to ensure that the public
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has access to quality information. Even with these measures, I do not believe that the

obsolescence of reference services in public libraries can be averted. Public libraries simply do

not have the benefit of a captive audience of students and researchers that academic libraries do.

Public perception of libraries has been unfavorable, with many believing them to be obsolete

storehouses of books better left in a bygone era. Without proper promotion of reference services,

this will become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

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