It's a busy afternoon at the Baker/Berry Library reference desk, where librarian Laura Braunstein is fielding students' queries.
"Oh, you found the books? That's wonderful," says Braunstein to Tara Madsen '05, as Madsen carries a fat stack of texts to a workstation. Earlier, Madsen had asked for help researching an anthropology paper.
Reference librarians at the College agree that students nationwide are turning to the Internet or online databases more often for research rather than heading to the library, but they say Dartmouth bucks the trend. The number of library users asking the reference desk for help has remained stable over the past few years.
Nearly a quarter of Dartmouth's student population, or just over 1,000 students, has used Rauner Library over the past year, according to internal records.
Braunstein, who started working at Baker/Berry last September, says she receives two to three in-depth queries during peak hours and four "where's-the-stapler?" type queries, generally about how to use the library catalog.
Though many students like Madsen still use the reference desk, others say they often go to librarians only as a last resort.
"I try to use the Dartmouth library website as much as I can so as to not bother the librarians, and I feel that I ought to do as much research as I can before I ask them for help," Rachel Wixom '06 said.
Cara Foster '07 agreed.
"When I'm not exactly sure what I'm looking for, I feel dumb talking to a person and wasting their time."
Some students are more comfortable mining the Internet and web resources.
"Online resources are more readily accessible, and you can find books easily through the library catalog," Adrian Ng '05 said.
"Sure, there's a lot you can do online," said librarian Francis Oscadal of the Baker/Berry reference desk. "But you're only scratching the surface of a vast amount of information. If you talk to us we can point you to better resources."
Oscadal speaks from experience -- more than 20 years of it. Meanwhile, the three front-line archive specialists at Rauner each have more than 25 years of experience under their belts.
"Our librarians are amazing -- they can sometimes give you information off the tops of their heads," agreed college archivist Peter Carini, who co-manages Rauner Library along with records manager Wess Jolley. "And they can help you focus the direction of your research.
"For instance, a woman wanted material on Daniel Webster -- which we've got loads of. So we asked her some questions to help her focus her research on a particular area," said Carini.
These days, library users are using the Internet for research another way -- by emailing their questions to the reference desk.
Baker/ Berry's reference desk receives several emails each day. Each of these takes anywhere from ten minutes to an hour to reply to, depending on how complex the question is, Braunstein said.
"It's a convenient way for students to get reference help without leaving the dorm," she added.
