USERS’ COMMODIFICATION OF XYZ LIBRARY REFERENCE SERVICES

Abstract

The phenomenon of digitizing reference services in the XYZ Library has been going on for more than a decade beginning in the early 2000s. The existence of information and communication technology in the digital era implemented in XYZ Library has broken down the limits of distance and time of library services. The remote access feature facilitated by the XYZ Library makes it easy for the librarians and library users to communicate. The focus of this research is on how the transformation of reference services from conventional or manual to digital reshapes the complexity of human and technological relationships, power relations between librarians and library users, as well as among librarians themselves, in the frame of political economic studies by Vincent Mosco (2009). This research was conducted by using descriptive qualitative approach, and case study method. Data are collected by interview and via email. Informants in this study were reference librarians, Doctorate students, and professors. Within the framework of Mosco's political economy theory, commodification, spatialization, and structural practices also occur in the activities of XYZ Library governance. The commodification of library users and individuals involved in the XYZ Library program is a form of implementation of Mosco's commodities. While the commodification of XYZ Library websites is a form of practice on the media commodification in Mosco's political economy theory. The practice of commodification of audiences and media in XYZ Library is the capital that managers use to improve services to the users as well as to show the performance of library manager to the University managers.