Abstract

The roving reference concept is relatively new in the Philippines. In 2012, the De La Salle University (DLSU) Libraries shared in its OCLC report entitled “Reference and Information Services in Selected Philippine Academic Libraries: Trends and Future Prospects” that DLSU will be introducing roving reference as part of the services of the DLSU Libraries. RIA or the Roving Information Assistant was finally launched in November 2013 and was pilot tested in July 2014. RIA allows the library staff to engage further with patrons, to expand information assistance, and to create a higher level of customer service in reference transactions. The presence of the librarians is more visible as they roam throughout the spheres of the library. This evaluative research seeks to determine if the objectives of RIA was fulfilled. Online evaluation forms were used to solicit feedback from both the users and the librarians. This paper shares the reference transaction experiences and results of the roving reference service of the De La Salle University Libraries.

Keywords: Roving information assistant, reference services, roving reference, customer satisfaction, service evaluation, Philippines

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License

Copyright (c) 2016 The author(s). This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited.

How to Cite

Yap, J. M., & Cajes, M. L. (2016). Where are the Librarians?: The Roving Reference Experience of DLSU Libraries. Information World, 17(2), 232-246. https://doi.org/10.15612/BD.2016.506