Long live old reference services and new technologies

Library Trends, Fall, 2001 by Bill Katz

ABSTRACT

REFERENCE LIBRARIANS MUST TAKE THE LEAD in the new era of information. It is not enough to follow traditional patterns of service. Reference services technology has passed its first stage of insuring more accurate, rapid delivery of information. The second revolution, which is underway, will improve on both acquisition and retrieval of data. It is necessary to fit new technologies into traditional reference service goals. The human should be given first priority. A new approach to many methods of service is required.

LONG LIVE OLD REFERENCE SERVICES AND NEW TECHNOLOGIES

The appropriate advice to offer any reference librarian about time present and time future can be summarized briefly. First, have faith in yourself and the therapy of humor--although, as Dr. Johnson observed, when you reach seventy-seven it is time to be earnest. Second, analyze all the banal oral, twisted print, and rapid digital advice about how to enhance reference services. This will end in irksome boredom, but it is excellent brain exercise. Third, hold tightly to present practices until someone actually demonstrates the new technology works and will make life effortless. Fourth, don't assume someone over thirty can't learn anything. And if under thirty, don't dismiss the elderly librarian as a friend of the original library commander Dewey. Fifth, after a frustrating day, never quit. Take a cold bath.

There is much more to be said, but anyone sick of gratuitous guidance should return to Proust, a bit of madeline and a cup of tea. Others may proceed to a few additional palpable thoughts about the fairest section in the library.

The reference library of today is a technological utopia, a democratic cultural oasis for idiots and intellectuals. In a land where more citizens know the lyrics of a commercial than those of the national anthem, the reference section is of inestimable value for seeking trivial bits of information. At the same time, the mentally engaged may turn from the frivolous to spend years researching the life of Francis Scott Key.

The democratic nature of reference work is well known, and it is presumptuous to labor the obvious. Not so clear is the character of technology and its prodigious effect on the changing role of reference services. The reference librarian is now an information specialist whose position advances in esteem as gradually as his or her salary. In the private sector online impresarios have cranked up lucrative (if not always useful) reference sites. The intellectual problem is how to balance the best of the new technologies with the daily, human needs of individuals. The primary argument is simple enough: Reference librarians should not follow the parade down the information highway: instead they should be in the lead. They must command the technological innovations to help rather than frustrate and confuse the public.

There are numerous ways of moving from behind to ahead. Most librarians are well aware of the possibilities, few of which are revolutionary. All make practical sense. Some libraries now have taken a commanding position in the community. Others are modifying present services to improve public use. The 2001 budget of the New York Public Library devotes an additional $10 million to books and to extending hours for library services. The Alabama Virtual Library gives all state residents free online reference access to sources from indexes to directories. Users may seek the information in library, home office, or wherever they have computer access. California's two largest digital libraries--the California Digital Library and the Library of California--are in step with Alabama by offering statewide online reference service 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. And at the State University of New York at Albany, as in most larger academic libraries, computer clericals (rather than librarians) handle the day by day queries about how a computer functions. Even a cursory glance at library literature demonstrates the imaginative pioneering ideas of working reference librarians.

Cheering on the troops is easy enough. Not so easy is simply trying to keep up. Although Watson-Boone (2000) confines her study to academic librarians and their insistent involvement with research, reference librarians in any type of library would agree that, "In an information-driven world, keeping abreast of new information and knowledge, as well as of procedures for handling them, is part of living and working" (p. 86). Fail to move with the times and what happens? Disaster, in the view of some. Campbell (2000) wonders whether it's too late for reference services to survive: "I honestly do not know. What I do know is that if they are to survive, you will have to transform them for the new age and prove their value" (p. 227).

Bosh. Reference services will not only survive, they will flourish long after today's technology is obsolete.

Harmon (2000) notes that "dozens of companies have announced plans to flood the world with hand-held devices including various mutations of cell phones, MP3 music players, digital cameras, e-mail pagers, Web browsers and geopositioning systems" (p. WK6). Then along comes ebrary.com, which promises to replace photocopying by printing out online at a modest cost (around 15 cents per page) most periodical articles or parts of books. Will it work? Like scores of other new technologies, it depends on numerous variables, but for the time being it is worth investigation by reference librarians.