After years of having almost the same lineup at Zone 1 reference librarians' meetings, we actually had two new attendees: Toby from Westmont and Tatiana from Lisle. Both came after reorganizations in their libraries put them in charge of reference. So we talked about how libraries are organized and lines of authority. Every library in the zone seems to have a different approach.
Our main discussion topic was databases for public libraries, their prices, and usage statistics. The most complaints were about Reference USA to which most of the other libraries subscribe, as much as $12,000 per year; there does not seem to be any consistency in pricing; everyone feels they are paying too much. Hinsdale, Woodridge, Indian Prairie, and Downers Grove showed their usage statistics of databases. Indian Prairie seems to have gotten the most public response, lowering the transaction to cost ratio to less than $2.00 for all their databases; they may be marketing the databases more than anyone else. All these libraries are getting much of the use from remote patrons.
Susan from Woodridge showed the online reference books she has purchased from Thomson Gale. She spent $3000 and has put them up on the Woodridge website. They require Woodridge Library card to use. She is going to monitor usage to see if they were worth purchasing. They look nice and have a lot more authority that many web pages.
We also talked about metasearching. No one seemed to be terribly interested, worrying that having bringing together many types of results into a single search will confuse the average public library user. Debbie of Indian Prairie said that she though metasearching went against the trend of people wanting fewer choices.
The next meeting is a tour of the National Archives in Chicago on November 3.