“If it computes, patrons have brought it in”: Personal information management and personal technology assistance in public libraries

•A survey and subsequent interviews explore how public libraries provide personal digital technology assistance.•Over 95% of survey respondents received patron requests for assistance with personal digital technology.•Over 71% of survey respondents received patron requests for assistance with personal digital content.•Interview participants report a lack of resources about how to assist patrons with personal information queries.

All public libraries in a single US state were surveyed in order to explore the types of personal technology assistance requests the staff received and how they responded to such requests. Staff at each library that reported having received patron requests for assistance with personal digital technology or content were invited for a 30-minute follow-up phone interview in which they were asked to provide more detail about their interactions with patrons and their opinions about this aspect of library work. In total, 130 of the 234 libraries (55.5%) in the state responded to the survey and representatives from 10 of those libraries participated in follow-up phone interviews. While public librarians are willing to tackle these patron requests, they have little preparation or specific continuing education in this area to provide them with support. Although many public librarians categorize technology assistance as reference work, official Reference and User Services Association guidelines do not consider it within the scope of reference work. The growing body of patron requests suggests that, as work in public libraries continues to evolve in order to meet patron needs, so too should the guidelines for reference work.