Introduction
What skills does an academic reference librarian need in the 21st century? Changes in information and communication technology (ICT) used to communicate with members of an academic library's community mean that library staff involved in providing reference services may need to develop new skills, while at the same time maintaining their traditional skills. These traditional skills include knowledge of reference sources, the reference interview, and the ability to provide information literacy instruction, while the new skills include the use of social media, such as blogs, Twitter, and Facebook to reach out to new clients. This paper reports on the results of an online survey of New Zealand academic library reference staff, asking what activities they carried out as part of their daily activities, as well as what skills and knowledge they judged to be important in the future. The results will be useful to library managers, staff involved in designing professional development programmes, and also to academics in library and information schools that teach reference courses.