Purpose Though we live in a digital era, libraries offer significant hours of in-person reference services, in combination with online reference services. Nevertheless, an increase in requests for in-person, individualized research consultations (IRCs) over the last few years has been observed. IRCs between librarians and students are common practice in academic institutions. While these sessions can be deemed useful for patrons, as they are tailored to their specific needs, however, they can also be time consuming for the librarians. Therefore, it is important to evaluate this service, and assess its impact in order to ensure that the users are getting the most out of their sessions. The purpose of this paper is to gather information on the evaluation and assessment tools that Canadian institutions are using to obtain feedback, measure their impact and improve their consultation services. Design/methodology/approach A bilingual (French and English) web-based questionnaire was issued, with a generic definition of IRCs provided. The questionnaire included general demographics and background information on IRC practices among Canadian academic librarians, followed by reflective questions on the assessment process of such practices. The questionnaire was sent to Canadian academic librarians via e-mail, using professional librarian associations’ listservs, and Twitter was used for dissemination as well. Findings Major findings of the survey concluded that the disciplines of health sciences and medicine, as well as the arts and humanities are the heaviest users of the IRC service model. On average, these sessions are one hour in length, provided by librarians who often require advanced preparation time to adequately help the user, with infrequent follow-up appointments. It was not surprising that a lack of assessment methods for IRCs was identified among Canadian academic libraries. Most libraries have either no assessment in place for IRCs, or they rely heavily on informal feedback from users, comments from faculty members and so on. A small portion of libraries use usage statistics to assess their IRCs service, but other means of assessment are practically non-existent. Research limitations/implications The survey conducted was only distributed to Canadian academic libraries. Institutions across the USA and other countries that also perform IRCs may have methods for evaluating and assessing these sessions which the authors did not gather; therefore, the evidence is biased. As well, each discipline approaches IRCs very differently; therefore, it is challenging to compare the evaluation and assessment methods between each discipline. Furthermore, the study’s population is unknown, as the authors did not know the exact number of librarians or library staff providing IRCs by appointment in academic Canadian institution. While the response rate was reasonably good, it is impossible to know if the sample is representative of the population. Also, it needs to be acknowledged that the study is exploratory in nature as this is the first study solely dedicated at examining academic librarians’ IRC practices. Further research is needed. As future research is needed to evaluate and assess IRCs with an evidence-based approach, the authors will be conducting a pre-test and post-test to assess the impact of IRC on students’ search techniques. Originality/value Evidence-based practice for IRCs is limited. Very few studies have been conducted examining the evaluation and assessment methods of these sessions; therefore, it was believed that a “lay of the land,” so to speak, was needed. The study is exploratory in nature, as this is the first study solely dedicated at examining the evaluation and assessment methods of academic librarians’ IRC practices.

中文翻译：

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加拿大图书馆员如何在大学图书馆中实践和评估个性化研究咨询：一项全国性调查

目的尽管我们生活在数字时代，但图书馆提供大量的亲自参考服务以及在线参考服务。然而，在过去的几年中，已经发现对亲自进行个性化研究咨询（IRCs）的需求有所增加。图书馆员和学生之间的IRC是学术机构的普遍做法。虽然这些会议对于顾客而言是有用的，但由于它们是针对其特定需求而量身定制的，但是对于图书馆员来说，它们也可能很耗时。因此，评估此服务并评估其影响非常重要，以确保用户从会话中获得最大收益。本文的目的是收集有关加拿大机构用来获取反馈的评估和评估工具的信息，评估其影响并改善其咨询服务。设计/方法/方法发行了基于双语（法语和英语）的网络问卷，其中提供了IRC的一般定义。问卷调查表包括加拿大学术图书馆员中有关IRC做法的一般人口统计资料和背景信息，然后是对此类做法的评估过程的反思性问题。使用专业图书馆员协会的列表服务，通过电子邮件将调查表发送给加拿大的学术图书馆员，并且还使用Twitter进行传播。调查结果调查的主要结果得出结论，健康科学和医学学科以及艺术和人文学科是IRC服务模型的最大使用者。平均而言，这些课程为时一小时，由经常需要提前准备时间以充分帮助用户的馆员提供的服务，而很少进行后续预约。不足为奇的是，加拿大学术图书馆中发现缺乏针对IRC的评估方法。大多数图书馆要么没有针对IRC的评估，要么严重依赖用户的非正式反馈，教职员工的意见等等。一小部分图书馆使用使用情况统计信息来评估其IRC服务，但实际上没有其他评估方法。研究局限性/含义所进行的调查仅分发给加拿大的学术图书馆。美国和其他国家/地区也执行IRC的机构可能有评估和评估这些会议的方法，而作者没有参加。因此，证据是有偏见的。同样，每个学科对IRC的处理方式也非常不同。因此，比较每个学科之间的评估和评估方法是一项挑战。此外，该研究的人口是未知的，因为作者不知道在加拿大学术机构中通过任命提供IRC的图书馆员或图书馆工作人员的确切人数。虽然答复率相当不错，但无法知道样本是否代表总体。此外，需要承认，该研究本质上是探索性的，因为这是第一项专门研究大学图书馆员IRC实践的研究。需要进一步的研究。由于需要采用基于证据的方法来进行未来的研究以评估和评估IRC，作者将进行前测和后测，以评估IRC对学生搜索技术的影响。IRC的原创性/价值基于证据的实践是有限的。很少有研究检查这些会议的评估和评估方法；因此，据认为可以说需要一块“土地”。该研究本质上是探索性的，因为这是第一个专门研究大学图书馆员IRC实践评估和评估方法的研究。