I_Evidence_2

Melissa Townsend-Crow

Article Review

September 17, 2012

Ross, C.S. (2003).  The Reference Interview: Why it needs to be used in every (well, almost every) reference transaction.  Reference & User Services Quarterly, 38-43.

In the article,  “The Reference Interview: Why It Needs to Be Used in Every (Well, Almost Every) Reference Transaction, “ Catherine Ross illustrates not only the importance of the reference interview, but how to conduct an effective one. She defines the reference interview as:

A series of questions to help determine, specifically, what information is being sought

A creative collaboration between the information seeker and librarian helping him/her

A short exchange that

starts with librarian acknowledgement followed by questions designed to elicit specificity in the information seeker's quest and

allows the person to narrow and clarify in his or her own mind the scope and type of information s/he needs

Ross classifies librarians as "keystone species" -- one of the species in an ecology whose loss leads to the extinction of other species in the ecosystem. The article doesn't really articulate what other "species" are dependent on the survival of the librarian unless it is in this phrase, "I am convinced that the institutions (libraries?) that will survive into the twenty-first century and beyond are those that serve their clients and give them the help they need."

The author writes, "If libraries don't provide helpful information services, users will turn to other, more service-oriented, service-providers." Like … Google? One still needs to form a specific query to obtain the information they are seeking. How will people know how to clarify and narrow search terms without someone trained to show them? (i.e. the librarian) That helps clarify the designation of the keystone species status, and this passage also illustrates the importance if the reference interview in which the librarian helps narrow and make more specific the query for the information seeker.

Why do a reference interview?  According to Ross, less time is wasted by:

Hunting down the wrong sources

processing requests for the wrong materials (and in our library where I work, there is a fee for ILL paid by the patron)

time spent directing patrons to the wrong sources, only to have to start the search over

One of the  least effective interview methods is called the "Face value" rule. That is, when the reference librarian merely takes what the customer says at "face value" and does no more to help them find what they seek. This seems like a lazy way and not a very service oriented one, either. Since the mission of the public library is to serve the public, I don't think this is a very good method.

Besides the "face value" rule, the article lists four more less than desirable information seeking encounters:

without-speaking-she-began-to-type maneuver – this would be skipping the acknowledgement part of the interview and making an assumption of what the person is looking for without asking any clarifying questions

Bypassing the Reference Interview – which usually leads to delivering the wrong information or reference sources

Taking a System-Based Perspective – instead of user based one. In other words, the librarian expects the patron to have already done most of the work by looking up the references him/herself

Unmonitored Referral – giving the patron a call number and directing them to the general area where those books are shelved, but not assisting in any other way or making certain that the information hunt was successful

Librarians who don't want to be bothered to do their job (or those who work in libraries that are understaffed and very busy) may employ the following off-putting practices:

Unmonitored referral

Sending the patron to another department or even another library altogether

implying that patron hasn't done enough of the search on his/her own

taking the easy way out by not digging deep enough to help the patron find the  information s/he really wants or needs, but referring them to a (possibly) somewhat related subject that isn't what the patron really wants

tells the user that what he or she wants to know is too hard to find

uses nonverbal clues to cut off the encounter before the customer is finished with his/her search

claims that the library does not have the information that the patron is seeking or that the information s/he is seeking doesn't exist anywhere and can't be found

leaves the desk, ostensibly to go look for the information elsewhere in the library and doesn't return to the patron with the information, if at all 

Essentially, the most important function of a reference encounter is helping the customer find what s/he is seeking. There are valid reasons why this may not happen sometimes, but it should not be for a lack of effort or caring on the part of the librarian.