Reference librarians are no longer expected to know much about the information they find; they are merely expected to find it. Technological competency rather than knowledge has become the order of the day. In many respects, reference service has become a matter of typing search terms into a library's online catalog or a web search engine and providing the patron with the results of the search. Calling for a re-intellectualization of reference librarianship, this book suggests another approach to providing quality reference service--reading. The authors surveyed both academic reference librarians and public library reference personnel in the United States and Canada about their reading habits. From the 950 responses, the authors present findings about the extent to which librarians read newspapers, periodicals, fiction and nonfiction, and recount and analyze stories about how reading has made them better librarians. The authors also report that North American professors in the humanities and social sciences believe that the best reference librarians are those who have wide-ranging, subject-based knowledge as opposed to the type of process-based, functional knowledge that is increasingly dominating the curricula of many Library and Information Science programs.

Become more versatile, competent, and resourceful with these practical suggestions! Becoming a first-class reference librarian demands proficiency in a wide range of skills. Doing the Work of Reference offers sound advice for the full spectrum of your responsibilities. Though many aspects of a reference librarian's work are changing with astonishing speed, the classic principles in this volume will never go out of date. This comprehensive volume begins with hints for orienting yourself to a new job and concludes with ideas for serving the profession. On the way, Doing the Work of Reference covers such diverse topics as working with student assistants, offering reference services to remote users, and keeping up your professional development. In addition, you will find strategies for dealing with technological change--not high-tech information that will become obsolete before the ink is dry, but ways of approaching the process of change that will work today, next week, and ten years from now. Doing the Work of Reference will help you increase your competence in: getting along with other staff members marketing the library to users and faculty handling ephemeral materials keeping students’attention in library instruction courses maintaining good relations with faculty increasing your subject knowledge and much more! This comprehensive guide is an essential handbook for librarians in the trenches. Whether you are a new librarian or a veteran at the reference desk, Doing the Work of Reference will help you burnish your skills.

Here is a crucial book on the neglected issue of continuing education of reference librarians. For librarians seeking to enhance and maintain a high level of quality reference work and for managers who must assure that their staffs receive the basics in continuing education, this is essential reading. Continuing Education of Reference Librarians addresses the concerns of all librarians that they must be informed and educated in order to excel in their work. In the first several chapters of this comprehensive volume, on-the-job librarians focus on the increased need for nontraditional approaches to continuing education and training of reference staff. They offer practical ways of making additional training both useful and relatively easy to carry out within the library setting. Teachers of reference offer suggestions for contending with current formal courses, and they also examine the responsibilities of not only the reference librarian but also the bibliographer and faculty member in staying abreast of current trends. Also in this broad-based look at continuing education is a list of critical skills most librarians expect of their reference people, including reference interview techniques, mastery of basic reference sources, and an understanding of new technologies; a review of the most revolutionary change in teaching reference librarianship in the last 100 years--the online search; and a discussion on ethics, including the need for librarians to be aware of the basic documents of the American Library Association, and more importantly, the need to treat all library users equally, in terms of access and service, regardless of status and personal prejudice. Continuing Education of Reference Librarians focuses on specific types of training for librarians. Authorities explain pioneering programs in California and Maryland which deal with teaching basic reference tools to beginning librarians and paraprofessionals. They also discuss the role of multitype networks in continuing education as the most cost and time efficient means available today, and the use of self-directed contract learning as a method that requires long-term planning and rewards in contrast to the immediate results of a short-term plan of education. The management perspective of continuing education is also included. Working library directors offer their observations on sound, inspirational approaches to continuing education. They also examine the critical role department heads play as mentor to beginning reference librarians.

"Provides information about librarianship as a career, including types of libraries, types of jobs within libraries, professional issues, and educational requirements"--Provided by publisher.

Learn and perfect the skills needed to conduct satisfying reference interviews in the modern technological environment with this easy-to-use guide. In today's technology-driven world, reference librarians must serve users who come into the building as well as remote users who ask via various digital means. With virtual reference and social networking tools now commonplace, reference questions have become more complex and interdisciplinary. The Reference Interview Today will help reference librarians decide which tools and strategies will best serve their diverse group of patrons—in person and in cyberspace. This text covers the skills needed for traditional face-to-face reference and how they can be applied in 2.0 media. Best practices for culturally diverse, disabled, and "difficult" patrons; strategies for public and academic libraries; and virtual technologies like Twitter and Second Life are described. Written by a practicing reference librarian, this invaluable book makes it easy to train paraprofessionals and serves as a guide for experienced librarians to hone their skills in new delivery methods.