What is the best model of reference service?

Library Trends, Fall, 2001 by David A. Tyckoson

Timeliness is another important value. Often patrons need an answer quickly and the reference librarian does not have sufficient time to conduct a thorough investigation of the topic. Some patrons (such as those working on genealogy) may be willing to wait days, weeks, or even months for an answer. Others (such as those who need data for a presentation, paper, or meeting) have a definite time limit, and information delivered after that limit is useless. The first patron wants accurate information regardless of the wait. The second will accept a quick answer even if it is not thoroughly researched. Accuracy and timeliness are both valued by these patrons, but in much different ways.

Finally, reference librarians value authority when answering questions. During the time when most answers came from published reference sources, the authority of the answer was most frequently reflected in the identities of author and publisher. For example, an answer from a newspaper citing an unnamed source was not considered as authoritative as an answer written by a university professor and included in an encyclopedia published by Macmillan. Similarly, an answer found in the Statistical Abstract had the authority of the United States Census Bureau behind it, whereas data included without attribution in a magazine article had only the validity of the article's author. Reference librarians learned which sources and publishers were most likely to produce authoritative material and tended to use those sources to answer patron queries. With the advent of the Internet, it has become very easy to find unauthoritative sources, but finding an answer that is believable can be quite difficult. The value that sets reference librarians apart from other services that answer questions is their dedication to finding authoritative information.

The third function of the reference librarian is what we now call Reader's Advisory. Public libraries offer reader's advisory services in order to guide patrons to books that they might like to read. Reader's advisory services in public libraries are most commonly associated with fiction collections, where patrons read one author or genre and come to the librarian in order to find similar works. For example, a patron who has read works by the author Rita Mae Brown might be referred by the librarian to Lillian Jackson Braun, since both authors involve cats in their mystery novels. Academic librarians do a great deal of reader's advisory service as well, but they do not usually call it by that name. In academic libraries, reader's advisory often takes the form of referring students to sources or databases relevant to their research. In academic libraries, the question "Where should I look for information on my topic?" is really a request for reader's advisory service. The student is seeking not an answer to a specific factual question, but sources that can lead to further information on the topic. As libraries have come to rely more upon electronic databases, the number of reader's advisory requests has risen dramatically.