Yes Virginia, It Will Scale: Using Data to Personalize High-volume Reference Interactions

This examination of an on-going embedded partnership between Penn State University Libraries business librarians and an instructor in the Smeal College of Business confronts the question of scalability for one-on-one reference consultations for high-enrollment classes. Through these in-person interactions off-site and in the library, the librarians hope to build student confidence in librarians as information resources as well as increasing business literacy through research using established, authoritative sources. This article documents the first four semesters of this evolving project to demonstrate the logistics of managing a high volume of student interactions using library data as support for decision-making and action.