This study describes a questionnaire survey of reference departments in the libraries of Davidson College, Duke University, Wake Forest University, and the sixteen institutions of the University of North Carolina system. The survey was conducted to determine the forms, informational content, and uses of reference question records maintained by those departments.

Nine reference departments in eight university libraries keep records of reference questions. The arrangement of forms varies from department to department, but the categories of information to be recorded on those forms are fairly uniform. In these North Carolina academic libraries, records appear to be used to facilitate the routine work of reference librarians slightly more often than to guide decision making by administrators. The amount and detail included in these reference question records seem appropriate to and justified by the uses which are made of the records by the individual departments.

Headings:

College and university libraries -- Reference services

Reference services -- North Carolina

Reference services -- Statistics

Surveys -- Reference services