Transformation of Access Services in the New Era
Amy Chang, Dell M. Davis · Journal of Access Services · 2010
Today, accessing world information via search engines and discovery tools has changed how researchers and information users employ library resources eliciting their expectation for traditional library services. Additionally, social networking and wireless personal devices have created convenient new ways for people to obtain, produce, and share information instantaneously. The library is no longer the center that researchers must rely on to access information and research materials. This indeed has propelled the transformation of Access Services. Balancing emerging services and core services to meet the new expectations and demands of our users in the new era has become a major challenge for Access Services and for public services managers. In the new era, Access Services supports “many services to many users” onsite and online simultaneously, customer-driven one-stop service, along with seamless and embedded services. This article articulates the changing process in Access Services since the first transformation wave in the 1990s, identifies the new service dimensions of the most recent Access Services transformation wave, addresses the roles and challenges of Access Services managers and discusses service management issues in the transformation process.