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RE: What Is Reference About?
What Is Reference About?
3:50 PM EDT 8/13/08
This simple question has non-trivial answers that define reference librarianship and its appropriate education. This is a place to talk about that.


(Typo edited a couple days later!)
RE: What Is Reference About?
10:27 AM EDT 8/12/08 as a reply to Bob Watson.
In my view, it is not about books or databases ... it's about imparting information that becomes the reader's/viewer's/listener's knowledge.

Books (etc.) are essential resources, of course, but the "reference problem" lies in the need of the reference practitioner to know enough about the question at hand (and perhaps something of the questioner's background) to find an appropriate source.

Reference, in other words, depends upon the "social literacy" of the reference librarian, with "social literacy" being variable according to the subject area.

In Dewey's era, at the cusp of the information explosion, it is likely true that a well-rounded college graduate could cope as a generalized reference librarian. That was well over 100 year of scientific discovery and cross-cultural effervescence ago ... the world is much more complicated today than any one individual can grasp.

This makes "reference education" problematic at best. It's the education one gets in specific subject areas ... or in the overall global and national culture and events ... that is critical.

But how do we accomplish this? Is a new profession required?
RE: What Is Reference About?
12:19 PM EDT 8/13/08 as a reply to Bob Watson.
"Rumors of the “death of reference” have been greatly exaggerated!"

This is the hook for the recent (Aug 4-5) Reference Renaissance conference. I heard from two librarians I know that the conference was great and energizing. Some attendees blogged it ---I hope to get time to read the posts.

And here's the podcast from the inimitable George Needham and Joan Frye Williams on Resurrecting Reference.
What Is Reference About?
3:48 PM EDT 8/13/08 as a reply to Betha Gutsche.
Juicy links! Thanks!
RE: What Is Reference About?
1:55 AM EDT 10/12/09 as a reply to Bob Watson.
Reference work includes finding out what information people need and using library resources to provide that information and it's composed with:
1. Author(s)
2. Journal
3. Year
4. ISSN
5. DOI:
6. Publisher
RE: What Is Reference About?
4:09 PM EDT 10/13/09 as a reply to Carly Uy.
Heh. Once they need a citation, sure. But that's seldom what they really want. People seek knowledge (an internal state); information is contained in a proxy (book, db, etc.) that we can actually handle, but using information assumes having sufficient personal knowledge to interpret/use what is presented.

Reference is often an art of interpretation, of both need and material. It relies much more on the librarian's understanding of the user's need (question) than it does on collections themselves (particularly in this age of search engines).
RE: What Is Reference About?
12:46 PM EST 11/6/09 as a reply to Bob Watson.
The following seems important for the future of reference: The Age of the Informavore.

In part:

We are apparently now in a situation where modern technology is changing the way people behave, people talk, people react, people think, and people remember. And you encounter this not only in a theoretical way, but when you meet people, when suddenly people start forgetting things, when suddenly people depend on their gadgets, and other stuff, to remember certain things. This is the beginning, its just an experience. But if you think about it and you think about your own behavior, you suddenly realize that something fundamental is going on.


On another note ... is there a place at WJ where people can drop links to interesting topics? I could do so at St. Jerry's, of course, but that seems self-indulgent.