Book review - Reference and Information Services in the 21st Century

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Reference and Information Services in the 21st Century: An Introduction by Kay Ann Cassell and Uma Hiremath 2nd edition published by Facet Publishing, London, 2009.

In 2005 research by Bradford, Costello and Lenholt showed that print sources are used by librarians less than 10% of the time for answering users enquiries. Despite this finding it feels as though this book concentrates primarily on print resources with online as an addition. Having said that the book is a very thorough review of reference and information work in public libraries, albeit from an American point of view.

The layout is easy to follow with sections on resources for answering different types of questions. The sections are as follows:

Bibliographic resources for questions about books, magazines and newspapers

Encyclopedias for anything and everything

Ready reference for supplying quick facts

Dictionaries for queries about words

Databases and Indexes

Health, Law and Business resources

Geographical resources

Biographical resources

Government data and statistics

Each chapter has a convenient list of the top ten resources in the area. Sadly for school librarians many of the resources quoted are too expensive but the recommended free web sites are very useful. The chapter on Web 2.0 is a concise introduction to many of the newer technologies and cites collaboration or cooperative content creation, social networking, customization and seamlessness as defining features. The short chapter on the future of information services contained a useful model of nine different types of Reference Service ranging from the traditional desk, a roving service, a virtual service, outreach or at the most extreme no reference desk at all.

The authors give a pertinent list 11 key competencies of the 21st century librarian as follows:

Ability to provide information using Reference 2.0 technologies

Knowledge of how to select electronic resources

Online searching expertise

Desire to share knowledge through teaching

Reader's advisory skills

Knowledge of how to develop an effective web presence

Appreciation of importance of marketing

Familiarity with research on assessment and evaluation

Interpersonal skills

Ability to adapt to change

Enthusiasm for continued professional learning

I feel that my Library and Information Studies Post Graduate Diploma gave me a really good grounding in evaluation of resources and searching techniques. I feel that it was less comprehensive in equipping me with competency in conducting reference interviews and lacking in teaching about teaching. I also felt less than confident after qualifying about the depth of my knowledge of resources in different subject areas.

Reading this book at a time when I was updating sixth form induction information helped me to identify and promote some possible alternatives to Wikipedia that I wasn't aware of before. But as I tried out each one in turn I was struck by how the alternatives, despite having more scholarly and authoritative provenence, were not as easy, satisfying or pleasant to use as Wikipedia. The school where I work has banned the use of Wikipedia but like the ubiquitous supermarket most of us use it because it is a fast one stop shop, extremely good at supplying what we need.

This book certainly is a good introduction but at over 400 pages it is not a quick read. I got the most out of this book when I revisited it on several occasions and took the time to investigate the online resources further. Even the parts that I felt I had a good grasp of caused me to reflect on my current practice and how this fitted into the bigger picture of user needs and service efficiency. I would certainly recommend it to any librarian undertaking chartership.

References

Bradford, J.T., Costello, B. and Lenholt, R. 2005. "Reference Services in the Digital Age: An Analysis of Sources Used to Answer Reference Questions". Journal of Academic Librarianship 31 (3), 263-272.