Between last week and this
(weeks 6 & 7) there has been lots of discussion about reference, customer
service, and library users. The most active discussions revolved around the
catalog, classification, and how information or books are retrieved. You pose
great questions and are definitely ruminating about the issues. The reflective
journals echo these concerns as well as issues that jump out at you. I’d say
Weigland’s article was the most popular and put reference, information seeking,
and information needs into perspective. As I mentioned in my podcast, I didn’t
see the benefit of the article originally, but after ruminating on the idea of
how we make decisions, Weigland is right on target.
Some of you continue to
write about reference interviews, giving information to patrons vs. teaching
them to find it. It’s important to remember that although each reference
encounter is a teachable moment, sometimes they just want that “factoid” and a
quick, here’s the source. and the info may be good enough for the patron.
As the patron continues to
return to the reference desk, you’ll get a sense that teaching them to find the
information will be helpful and more rewarding. I’m thinking here of genealogy
& local history, literary criticism, art history and school paper topics.
My favorite question used
to be “Where can I find the Bible?” My response was, “What type and what
language?” Sometimes that elicited a longer reference interview; sometimes I
just took them to the 292’s and showed them how the Bibles and biblical
commentaries were arranged. I always ended the discussion with “If you didn’t
find what you want or need more, come back and I’ll help you find it.” Today I
hear the refrain as “Did that answer your question completely?” If you remember
that reference is a multi-step process, you’ll help the patron learn
step-by-step.
Here’s another example of
searching step by step, but not necessarily in a mediated manner. Look at what
Ancestry is doing with their TV show “Who Do You Think You Are?” http://www.nbc.com/who-do-you-think-you-are/ They make genealogy research look really
easy, just log on and put in your name, and voila, there’s a leaf and your
family tree is growing. What you don’t see, unless you work in a genealogy or local
history department, is how difficult it really is to use the database. When we
examine the searching mechanisms at Ancestry we discover that, while their
search engine pulls from their huge database of documents, it also provides
imprecise answers and the searches are difficult to replicate. It is almost
impossible to get the database to retrieve a specific item unless you save it.
The imprecision and the huge number of hits, frustrates patrons. It just looks
easy but it’s not that easy. I love searching Ancestry, and they have raised
the publics’ awareness of the importance of libraries, archives, and museums
and the vast collections housed within their walls. If you watch their show
carefully, individuals seek assistance in their research from librarians,
archivists, and historians. When it comes to searching for information, librarians
and archivists are an essential part of the equation and solution. We, the
librarians, help our patrons make sense of databases and information, so their
search is successful or at least somewhat fruitful. [1]
As librarians and
archivists, as professional researchers, it is important to take the time to
learn how databases and search engines retrieve data and citations. What
elements do they actually query? How do they rank or select the elements for
each data set? How is the located data displayed? All these factors are
important to consider as we explore resources, search catalogs and websites,
and teach these reference tools to our patrons.
By the way, if you are interested
in reading more about teaching at the reference desk and / or collaborative
teaching, check out James K. Elmborg and Sheril Hook, Centers for Learning: Writing Centers and Libraries in Collaboration, Publications
in Librarianship No. 58 (Chicago: Association of College and Research
Libraries, ALA, 2005).
[1] My comparison is a gross simplification of the
differences between database search, retrieval, and output mechanisms.
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