Reference librarians are no longer expected to know much about the information they find; they are merely expected to find it. Technological competency rather than knowledge has become the order of the day. In many respects, reference service has become a matter of typing search terms into a library's online catalog or a web search engine and providing the patron with the results of the search. Calling for a re-intellectualization of reference librarianship, this book suggests another approach to providing quality reference service--reading. The authors surveyed both academic reference librarians and public library reference personnel in the United States and Canada about their reading habits. From the 950 responses, the authors present findings about the extent to which librarians read newspapers, periodicals, fiction and nonfiction, and recount and analyze stories about how reading has made them better librarians. The authors also report that North American professors in the humanities and social sciences believe that the best reference librarians are those who have wide-ranging, subject-based knowledge as opposed to the type of process-based, functional knowledge that is increasingly dominating the curricula of many Library and Information Science programs.

Reading and the Reference Librarian: The Importance to Library Service of Staff Reading Habits

Dilevko, Juris

Gottlieb, Lisa

Reference

McFarland

Unobtrusive Evaluation of Reference Service and Individual Responsibility: The Canadian Experience (Contemporary Studies in Information Management, Policy, and Services)

Many reference librarians have been highly critical about unobtrusive evaluation studies. But can their opposition be justified? Or is it just a way to detract attention from serious shortcomings in reference service? How can government documents reference service, and reference service in general, be improved? Do librarians have enough general and subject-specific knowledge to provide informed and intelligent answers to reference questions? Would any business or non-profit organization be satisfied with the traditional 55 percent efficacy rate in reference service revealed by unobtrusive evaluation studies?Long a controversial topic in the specialized world of reference librarianship, unobtrusive evaluation is nevertheless a useful tool in gauging the degree to which reference librarians are effectively performing their jobs. Based on a nationwide study of government documents reference service in Canada, this book examines the broad philosophical implications of negative attitudes to unobtrusive evaluation studies within libraries. It also discusses what really happens when librarians make referrals to external sources. Drawing on the insights of such library educators as Margaret Hutchins, S. R. Ranganathan, and James Wyer, it also suggests overlooked ways that may help reference librarians deliver better reference service. Finally, it argues that such proposals as certification and recertification of reference librarians need to be seriously considered if librarians do not willingly take personal responsibility for improving their own knowledge levels.

Unobtrusive Evaluation of Reference Service and Individual Responsibility: The Canadian Experience (Contemporary Studies in Information Management, Policies, and Services)

Politics & Social Sciences

Social Sciences

Praeger

Many reference librarians have been highly critical about unobtrusive evaluation studies. But can their opposition be justified? Or is it just a way to detract attention from serious shortcomings in reference service? How can government documents reference service, and reference service in general, be improved? Do librarians have enough general and subject-specific knowledge to provide informed and intelligent answers to reference questions? Would any business or non-profit organization be satisfied with the traditional 55 percent efficacy rate in reference service revealed by unobtrusive evaluation studies?
Long a controversial topic in the specialized world of reference librarianship, unobtrusive evaluation is nevertheless a useful tool in gauging the degree to which reference librarians are effectively performing their jobs. Based on a nationwide study of government documents reference service in Canada, this book examines the broad philosophical implications of negative attitudes to unobtrusive evaluation studies within libraries. It also discusses what really happens when librarians make referrals to external sources. Drawing on the insights of such library educators as Margaret Hutchins, S. R. Ranganathan, and James Wyer, it also suggests overlooked ways that may help reference librarians deliver better reference service. Finally, it argues that such proposals as certification and recertification of reference librarians need to be seriously considered if librarians do not willingly take personal responsibility for improving their own knowledge levels.

Everyone agrees that the profession of librarianship is undergoing vast changes, but what does it mean to say that a librarian is a professional? While librarians have worked long and hard to present themselves as professionals to the public, they have not examined the philosophical premises of their assumed professionalism. This book explores, from a critical and historical perspective, how professionalism-and the politics of professionalism-has been and is currently constituted within the field of librarianship.

The Underside of Professionalism: A Radically Traditional Proposal for Librarianship

Libraries Unltd Inc

This book presents a retro-progressive proposal for the education of librarians: the removal of library education from the jurisdiction of universities, which in recent decades have become increasingly corporatized, internalizing market-based concepts such as performance metrics and "audit culture" to the extent that, ideologically speaking, they are indistinguishable from corporations. The author presents a detailed, alternative model for library education, building upon Ralph Waldo Emerson's idea of a librarian as a "professor of books."

The Politics of Professionalism: A Retro-Progressive Proposal for Librarianship

Library Juice Press