Why do you ask?

10. Learning B: Student projects

Student demand raises more tricky issues. The questions are obviously more difficult. But they are also more dispersed. They cover a wide range of subjects, some of them higly specialized. Students ask for time-consuming details. Since the total volume is low - a question a day, on the average - it is difficult for the staff to build up expertise. Questions come in at random, from all directions:

• Where can I find information about the history of crime, criminal acts, methods of punishment etc. in Norway and Germany in the Middle Ages.
• I am looking for basic theory on how sonars function under water.
• Where can I find a survey of grocery stores etc. in Sunnmøre <region on the west coast of Norway>? Preferably ordered by municipality and including date of establishment if possible.

Nearly all students are associated with an institution of higher education. They are supposed to get their library services from their own university or college. When they use the public library system instead, they are stretching the rules.

Do you have any text books for the study of medicine?

Why do students avoid their own libraries? Cases differ. Some public libraries are less restrictive than academic libraries. They will lend books that otherwise could only be consulted on the spot. Competition from other students for the same resources is less intense. The reference service may be better. And most important: distance education creates a need for local access and virtual services.

The two systems should probably cooperate much more closely. In the future, they probably will. The subject-oriented education and research libraries could use the fine-grained network of public libraries as a delivery system. The public libraries could use the academic specialists as a second-line resource for difficult questions.

I am looking for sources about environmental education in primary school ... - this includes everything from literature that tells what environmental education is or how it should be done, to guidelines (if such exist) from the Ministry of Education and Ecclesiastical Affairs.

The libraries will normally try to do their best: librarians are trained to say yes. But the basic situation remains the same: questions from students must as a rule be handled by campus libraries. The queries that arrive at reference desks in public libraries represent a spillover phenomenon. The public library system cannot - on a large scale - compensate for weaknesses in the academic library system.

All imaginable statistics on artisans in Oslo (or Norway). For instance the number of licensed artisans by category, income, etc., etc.

We have seen that a VRD designed for the general public works quite well for primary and secondary education. Pupils ask many questions. But these are simple, repetitive queries that librarians are well trained to handle. Student questions are much more demanding.

The six queries used as examples in this section were taken at random from the topical student questions in our sample. Providing good answers to such questions take time. Ask The Library can cope with the occasional visitor.  But if students should start frequenting the service, the staff would soon be swamped. A broad-based service for the general public is not well suited for the detailed, time-consuming and unpredictable queries that students in higher education pose.

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