On March 14th, 2008, Columbia University Libraries hosted the 6th Reference Services Symposium. https://www1.columbia.edu/sec/cu/libraries/bts/symposia/reference/2008/
index.html.

The day’s theme: “Beyond the Desk” sought to highlight the changing nature of reference. The keynote speaker, Joe Janes, was both provocative and entertaining and encouraged reference librarians to focus on what we do well and not fight the Google culture. The contributed papers in the morning continued with the theme and discussed the impact of different technologies on how we provide reference. The afternoon panel explored generational differences amongst librarians and with our user groups.

The symposium was attended by about one hundred librarians from research libraries in the Northeast. Next year’s symposium is tentatively scheduled for mid-March 2009.