Reforming Reference: Guidelines For Librarian

The book is designed primarily to provide the advanced students in library and information science and the practising reference librarians with an overview both of the concepts and process behind today?s reference services. Technology has altered all aspects of our lives. It has succeeded in transforming the ways reference librarians interact with users, the ways they collect information and the ways they package information. As the basic link between users and library services, reference librarians are particularly affected the ways users access it. The book discusses how to meet the challenges that the information age brings with it and how to adapt to changing user expectation. It provides a philosophical rationale for the desirability of reference services in the information age. It discusses a brief history of role of the reference librarians over the last century. The book discusses the nature of effective communication and looks at questions from different angles and the web to answer these questions. It discusses the challenges the web presents to the reference librarians. In response to these challenges they actively promoted a vision of a library that allows all to identify and use needed information wherever they happen to be and at any time. The book highlights the features of remote reference service without the loss of human touch. Computer and communication networks now encircle the globe. Information technologies have become ubiquitous in the developed world and widely available elsewhere. Consequently this text offers a chapter on training, development and continual learning for reference staff in order to contribute to quality reference service.