Queues and Reference Service: Some Implications for Staffing

Abstract

In most organizations activities occur that produce waiting lines or queues. This study, undertaken at a medium-sized academic library, attempts through the use of a simulation technique ( 1) to analyze the extent to which queues develop at a reference desk during peak periods, (2) to propose alternative staffing models to reduce queues, and (3) through the use of a costeffectiveness formula to examine the merits of the proposed alternatives.THIS PAPER IS a case history of some staffing and service patterns at the reference desk of a medium-sized academic library. The study, however, is also an effort to apply standard quantitative techniques, i.e., queuing models and simulation, to a library management problem in the area of public services. These techniques, developed in business, industry, and science, have been widely used in such library areas as circulation, 1 library administration, 2 and technical services.3 This particular case attempts to evaluate or "measure" reference services beyond the compilation of "reference statistics" that emphasize the evaluation of past performance or defend the value of a reference service. 4 The emphasis here is on present services and staffing requirements for optimizing that service within the budgetary constraints of a particular library. In 1974 in a "Symposium on Measurement of Reference," it was stated that "the number one need for statistical information centered on information for staffing patterns including peak and idle periods, subject specialization and non-desk time. various alternative staffing patterns for peak period services can be compared and evaluated. DEFINITIONSAs in many service organizations, there exist processes that produce waiting lines or queues. In the operation of an information desk, a queue is defined as occurring when a patron or employee must wait because the desk, operating at capacity, is temporarily unable to provide service.A second term used in this study is "model." Although there are various types of models, for the purpose of this study the tenn model refers to the symbolic representation in tabular form of the reference service. Although four models were developed in the study, only one is shown here as an example of the management technique known as a "simulation." The data necessary to develop a simulation model were obtained by sampling patron arrival time and service time during peak periods for several weeks. PURPOSEThis study, conducted in the library at Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, was initially undertaken because of the authors' observations of long waiting times for reference service during peak periods and because of staff observations relative to increased service demands during these same I 293

National Reference Measurement: What Can It Tell Us about Staffing?

“…In 1979, the national college and university refer-ence transaction totals from the HEGIS survey for 1977 were studied by Aluri and Kaske and no correlations with any library performance measures were found. 10 Two other studies, however, indicated that the volume of reference transactions in a particular library appeared to be influenced to a substantial extent by (1) the number of persons in the library, 11 and (2) the number of individual reference-person hours furnished. Fully .80 of variation in the second study could be accounted for by these two factors.…”