Greetings

What is the feeling 'out there' regarding interfiling reference books into the general collection? Has your library tried it? What did you think? I'd love opinions from both library staff and library customers who have had experience with this.

As a retired librarian and as a library customer I would find it confusing if the reference books do not circulate, but are filed on the shelf in the circulating collection. Either it is or it isn't. Either have them on the reference shelf, accessible to the public, or reclassify them and have them circulate.

There was a discussion of this on PUBLIB a while ago: http://lists.webjunction.org/publib/sear...

Here at PSU, the Arts & Humanities ref collection also contains all of the non-ref (i.e. circulating) Zs. It's been that way for some time, but is about to change. It's always been very confusing for both patrons and staff.

This past summer, we reclassified some of our reference in my high school library and shelved them in the circulating books. Not only does it help alleviate crowding in reference but it makes more books available to students. The books we moved were single volume, single topic, not big cocktail table type books.

In my small public library we inter-file reference with the nonfiction collection. Most reference questions posed by our patrons (hardly ever) are answered by using electronic resources. We've never had one complaint in a year and in fact browsers see the reference and take it out to peruse - before inter-filing patrons NEVER (to my recollection) perused a reference book.

But do you get patrons who try to check out the reference books without realizing that you can't? It sounds like that would be a big problem...unless there was a big "YOU CAN'T CHECK THIS BOOK OUT" sticker on all of the reference books.

In our library, reference books are interfiled, but labeled as reference, quite clearly. They are allowed to circulate for one night only and that is, again, clearly labeled in the inside cover. We always bring specific attention to the book and ask if they really do wish to check it out given its limited circulation period and heavy fines for lateness.

We find that people appreciate this very much. Many patrons might not go to a separate reference section, but are happy to find a serious reference book when looking up books on a specific subject. Actually, children seem to appreciate this more; they love being able to check out a big, glossy, "important" book and often treat it reverentially.