staff and students working at a library information desk should start to refer patrons to librarians for in - depth assistance . mui libraries should have a help desk at which staff and students may refer in - depth questions to librarians . the data from the research provided an opportunity to identify patterns and to explore how patrons are seeking reference services , and in 2011 were analyzed to answer these questions . the subject areas of the questions were also of interest because they might reflect success in outreach or areas that might be candidates for additional promotion of services . in this study the researchers extracted data by contact type , number of patrons helped , time spent , patron status , and whether or not the question was a referral from the help desk for the years 2008 - 2011 . table 1 show that both the number of consultations and the numbers of librarians reporting have decreased between 2008 and 2011 . table 2 shows that drop - in was by far the most popular way that patrons received assistance , accounting for 50% ( 3 , 141 questions ) of all transactions . the  office hours  refers to librarians providing dedicated office hours to answer questions from drop - in patrons , similar to traditional office hours that faculty provide . referrals from the information desk were so rare that the concept was abandoned after a short run . other  could mean helping someone in the library except of those the status of patrons who directly contacted librarians ( table 3 ) shows that graduate students are the heaviest users with faculty members in a solid third place . these figures show that graduate students visit their librarians in greater numbers than any other category . table 4 shows that consultations with librarians are for the most part between 20 minutes and 1 hour 25 minutes . researchers who contact a librarian are more likely to have questions that require some research to answer , and talking with a student or faculty member in an office usually take longer than an interaction at a reference desk . of course , there are questions that need only a brief answer ; the 1 to 4 minute category includes any number of interactions that took no more than 20 seconds , but were recorded as one minute ( see table 5 ) . the number of referrals to librarians from the information or help desks is much lower than expected . some librarians offer reference assistance and this has increased the visibility of librarian services to all in these areas , and possibly resulted in direct contacts rather than referral from the reference desk . as an offer the actual referrals from the service desk may be an even lower percentage than those recorded here . mui libraries office statistics consist of office research consultations , reference assistance during  office hours  held in the mui schools , and assistance via instant messaging , email , phone , and referrals from the libraries ask - a - librarian email service . total contacts in 2008 were 456 , in 2009 were 570 , in 2010 were 298 , and in 2011 were 550 . students contact the librarian primarily by drop - in ( 42% , 2008 through june 2011 ) . , a general help desk is used , among other methods , to refer patrons to subject - specific librarians for in- depth assistance . data were examined to determine if patrons continue to seek librarian assistance without their presence at the reference desk . the data examined how much time librarians spend with patrons , and how patrons contact librarians . these data show that from 2008 to 2011 the majority of patrons who contacted mui librarians were graduate and undergraduate students and their primary mode of contact was drop - in . further examination shows a decline over time in the number of referrals that librarians received from the help desks . over the same time period librarians at mui are making efforts to promote their services on campus cause many advantages . it must be noted that relying simply on statistical data may not provide a complete picture of how and why trends are occurring . data gathering is useful for administrators and librarians as a means of quantifying their work . librarians may use the data to show their impact , see trends , and develop relevant online guides and tutorials .
the purpose of this study is to understand reference libraries of isfahan university of medical sciences . 
 the reference part of libraries was examined from 2008 to 2011 . 
 we found that the number of reference librarians should be increased . 
 we found graduate students are the main patrons . 
 we understand interaction with patrons is very important 
 . this study will be helpful for specialist , librarian , and administrators .