The Reference Librarians' Round Table:
A Multitype Network for Improved
Reference Service and Cooperative Collection Development

Twelve years ago, an LSCA grant was funded to Corn Belt Library System on behalf of two special libraries, two academic libraries and six public libraries that made up the Reference Librarians' Round Table. Although the names have changed, this organization is still active in 1998 thanks to the original LSCA grant. All the libraries are located in the metropolitan area of Bloomington-Normal. The organization was formed to find ways in which the diverse resources in the libraries of the community could be shared and utilized more efficiently and effectively by the participants.

To initiate this effort, the group wrote an LSCA grant to the Illinois State Library to develop a bibliography of reference materials available at each library with unique reference collections. The strength of the group was that it was a grassroots effort and a multitype group of reference librarians who knew their collections, answered the questions and made referrals to other libraries for questions they could not answer. The group's goals were to improve overall reference service in the community through cooperation at a time when information requests were increasing and staffing was stagnant; requests for information were growing more complex, oftentimes beyond available internal resources; and staff subject or searching expertise was becoming limited; budgets for materials were cut and more.

The Reference Librarians' Round Table members decided to gain knowledge about information resources in the community libraries; to establish protocols for the ease of interlibrary cooperation; to spend less time exhausting internal resources when another library could more quickly access the information requested; and to direct patron referral to libraries with the needed information.

After the grant was funded, a professional librarian, Georgine Olson, was hired to coordinate the cooperative collection development part of the project. Many of the products resulting from the project were written and produced by Georgine Olson. The first product of the grant was a 27-page Librarian's Handbook, which contained each participating library's reference service protocols and an introduction to its library and services.

This project paid off in unexpected ways as well as the predictable payoffs. According to the participants, one of the greatest advantages of participation was getting to know the other reference librarians in the community and visiting the other libraries.

Obviously, the camaraderie developed in this project has lead to further cooperation and projects. A second LSCA grant was written and funded for cooperative activities during 1988-89. Most recently, the group submitted an LSTA grant that was approved for funding,

* Lori Bell, Automation/Technology Coordinator, Alliance Library System, Pekin.

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