An excellent training tool for both new and experienced staff, Fundamentals of Reference will quickly become your fundamental reference!

This important new book will help librarians make better reference decisions, aligned to customer needs and expectations, especially significant with today’s limited budgets.

The all-in-one “Reference reference” you’ve been waiting for, this invaluable book offers a concise introduction to reference sources and services for a variety of readers, from library staff members who are asked to work in the reference department to managers and others who wish to familiarize themselves with this important area of librarianship. Written in an accessible style and designed for everyday use, it presents an overview of the basic tools and techniques of reference work, including “Reference Services,” a section addressing such important topics as telephone reference, the reference interview, and electronic reference “Reference Sources,” chapters which focus on types of reference tools, including encyclopedias, dictionaries, directories, handbooks, and almanacs Appendixes with key documents prepared by the Reference and User Services Association (RUSA) and an annotated bibliography An excellent training tool for both new and experienced staff, Fundamentals of Reference will quickly become your fundamental reference!

Access and reference services are central to engaging with historical resources. As more people encounter archives for scholarly and avocational research, as part of creative pursuits, or to exercise their rights as citizens to access records, the possibilities for how collections are used will continue to evolve. Archivists need to be familiar with who their users are, understand why they're using archival collections, and engage in outreach so that they can provide excellent reference services. Reference and Access for Archives and Manuscripts outlines the various components of: providing physical, intellectual, and virtual access, acquiring reference knowledge and skills, navigating legal regulations and ethics, and designing use policies and effective outreach. Cheryl Oestreicher contextualizes how all of these components fit within other archival functions and offers strategies and detailed practices for creating comprehensive reference programs that archivists can adapt for any type of institution. Both new and experienced archivists will find Reference and Access for Archives and Manuscripts a solid foundation on which to add their own ideas for how to bring people into the archives as well as bring archives to the people. Readers are encouraged to examine these concepts and practices in conversation with others and to consider how archivists can continue to advance reference and access.

The protection of sensitive information against unauthorized access or fraudulent changes has been of prime concern throughout the centuries. Modern communication techniques, using computers connected through networks, make all data even more vulnerable for these threats. Also, new issues have come up that were not relevant before, e. g. how to add a (digital) signature to an electronic document in such a way that the signer can not deny later on that the document was signed by him/her. Cryptology addresses the above issues. It is at the foundation of all information security. The techniques employed to this end have become increasingly mathematical of nature. This book serves as an introduction to modern cryptographic methods. After a brief survey of classical cryptosystems, it concentrates on three main areas. First of all, stream ciphers and block ciphers are discussed. These systems have extremely fast implementations, but sender and receiver have to share a secret key. Public key cryptosystems (the second main area) make it possible to protect data without a prearranged key. Their security is based on intractable mathematical problems, like the factorization of large numbers. The remaining chapters cover a variety of topics, such as zero-knowledge proofs, secret sharing schemes and authentication codes. Two appendices explain all mathematical prerequisites in great detail. One is on elementary number theory (Euclid's Algorithm, the Chinese Remainder Theorem, quadratic residues, inversion formulas, and continued fractions). The other appendix gives a thorough introduction to finite fields and their algebraic structure.

Search skills of today bear little resemblance to searches through print publications. Reference service has become much more complex than in the past, and is in a constant state of flux. Learning the skill sets of a worthy reference librarian can be challenging, unending, rewarding, and-- yes, fun.

Metadata is used to organize and access information in an effective way. This is a comprehensive description of the various forms of metadata, its applications, and how librarians can use it. Both descriptive and nondescriptive forms of metadata are defined and applied to library functions.