Nine-thirty in the morning feels earlier and earlier as the weekend goes along! I started this morning with a strong cup of coffee and a panel discussion given by RUSA-BRASS. The discussion was mostly geared towards academic business librarians, but the information given on the importance of running focus groups (and how to run them) was useful to all librarians. Available at the beginning of the session were printouts of “Focus Groups and Libraries: A Selected Bibliography.”

Of particular interest to public reference librarians was a topic that only came up in the post-panel discussion: How should public librarians handle the increasing numbers of distance students using their public library as an auxilliary academic library? The distance student trend is growing fast; it will be interesting to see how this issue develops over the next few years.