Staff exchange in reference services Available to Purchase

Research at universities is becoming increasingly specialized and, at the same time, more interdisciplinary. In response to this paradox, academic libraries have tended to specialize along discipline lines by creating divisional libraries. The divisions typically offer reference and other library services to a focused clientele. This specialization leads to isolation and lack of communication among library departments, including separate, subject‐specific reference units. It also limits the versatility of staff. Staff exchange has been used in academic libraries to address some of these problems. It entails the utilization of a library's employees from one department performing tasks in another department.