Integrated Service Spaces: New ways of assessing collaboration.

Many academic libraries have participated in the growing trend in creating unified service desks, where users visit one desk to get help from a variety of library and other campus services. The University of Dayton’s Roesch Library, however, is exploring a different model. It is piloting a service that lends itself to true integration with external departments. Although unified service desks offer the convenience of one-stop assistance, the various units may still act as silos. Service integration facilitates better cross-training and less confusion for students who may need multiple forms of help in one common area.The library began to explore the possibility of a new service integration with the campus writing center after noticing more in-depth consultation trends from both the writing center and reference desk. Service desk statistics indicated that students had difficulty finding the writing center, while LibQUAL+ survey comments from students noted the need for more study space. By combining two separate service areas, the library could highlight one-stop assistance for research and writing needs as well as open up more study space.