ABSTRACT
Recent innovations in academic library patron services have been influenced by a wide variety of factors–the common movement towards service point consolidation as well as radical advances in mobility-enhancing communication technology are among the most prominent. Combined with near-ubiquitous Internet connectivity these developments have motivated a general reexamination of information and access service models with an eye to efficiency and enhancement. The newer generation of patrons reflects a massive paradigm shift in information use patterns and a consequent repositioning of library-related expectations and needs. The popular concept of “point of need service” represents librarians’ collective response to these changes. Widespread creative attempts to provide service where, when, and how users desire it has resulted in a shift away from solely providing static, location-based user access in the form of reference and circulation desks and towards supplementing this traditional model with a range of distinct and technologically innovative services. Recent advances in the development of point of need programs include IM reference, various applications of RSS feeds, “mobile” librarians enabled by smart phones and portable computing technology, as well as experiments in user-generated content, library gaming, social software, and virtual worlds such as Second Life.
