- Quick and Easy Reference Evaluation: Gathering Users' and Providers' Perspectives
The article focuses on the development of an instrument to evaluate reference services. It discusses reference service evaluations that count and classify transactions. It also examines instruments that evaluate the quality of library service as a whole, such as the LibQUAL survey. The author notes that the goal was to develop a model similar used to the customer satisfaction postcard used at restaurants. An instrument evaluating the perception of users and providers of reference services at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania academic libraries is explored.

- Cyberspace or Face-to-Face: The Teachable Moment and Changing Reference Mediums
This article considers the teaching role of reference librarians by studying the teachable moment in reference transactions, and users' response to that instruction. An empirical study of instruction was conducted in both virtual and traditional reference milieus, examining the following three services: Instant messaging (IM), chat, and face-to-face reference. The authors used the same criteria in separate studies of all three services to determine if librarians provided analogous levels of instruction and what factors influenced the likelihood of instruction. Methodologies employed included transcript analysis, observation, and patron surveys. Findings indicated that patrons wanted instruction in their reference transactions, regardless of medium, and that librarians provided it. But instructional techniques used by librarians in virtual reference differ somewhat from those used at the reference desk. The authors conclude that reference transactions, in any medium, represent the patron's point-of-need, thereby presenting the ideal teachable moment.

(source: Reference & User Services Quarterly, vol. 47, n° 3, 08 / sur abonnement)