http://hdl.handle.net/2142/1417 Allerton Park Institute Proceedings (no. 4, 1957); Edited by Rose B. Phelps and Janet Phillips http://hdl.handle.net/2142/1461 Summary Phelps, Rose B. The institute speakers, and the ensuing discussions, looked at reference work from four different approaches: the nature and spirit of reference service; its extension through effective public relations; its strengthening through greater knowledge of the materials and users; and its improvement through better organization and better selected and trained personnel. As for the first, there was general acknowledgment of the role of the library as an information center, in which the reference service concept as developed in the United States plays a principal part. The reference librarian is recognized as the interpreter of the library's collections. To do this well calls for special talent and skill. In the community constellation of institutions, organizations, and associations, the function of the library is to serve as a center of information. In any community there are many different "publics" with many different informational needs and demands. The individual library user probably belongs to several groups, e.g., he is a citizen, a father of a family, a businessman, and an amateur musician. His need for information may vary from details of a purely factual type as a date or address, to a question which requires the use of the library's whole resources on a certain subject and the borrowing of material not in the library. Among the publics which can be identified in any sizable community are groups concerned with its government, business, industry, labor, and transportation. Reference services (Libraries) Tue, 01 Jan 1957 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/2142/1460 Publicizing Information and Reference Services Bruder, Mildred In the first chapter of Public Library Service, A Guide to Evaluation, with Minimum Standards, the services provided by the modern library are grouped into six divisions. Under the sixth and last division heading are these provisions: "Stimulation of use and interpretation of materials through publicity, display, reading lists, story hours, book talks, book and film discussion, and other appropriate means either in the library or in community organizations. The idea of publicizing the library's policies and services, which includes all kinds of reference and informational services, is not new to anyone. All librarians attempt to tell the story of their library and its services in one way or another. I But for some reason, or perhaps a great many reasons, they )/ have failed to reach the general public. Too few people know what a library has to offer in the way of information and reference services, both to the individual and to the group. Reference services (Libraries) Tue, 01 Jan 1957 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/2142/1459 The Development of a Staff for Reference Work Knox, Margaret Enid "No library can render effective service without adequate and competent personnel. The library's unique function of serving as the one unbiased, non-partisan bureau of information for all the people calls for personnel of the highest competence and integrity. The selection of qualified staff members as well as the organization and conditions under which they work, are basic considerations in an institution dedicated to public service. "* In these words the new Public Library Standards affirm the significance of the human element in library service. While some similar statements of the importance of the staff of a library may be found in the library literature, until recent years little serious attention has been given to the problems of staff training and development. Librarians, in the main, have tended to devote the greater portion of their time and energies to the selection and development of their library collections, with little time for the post professional or in-service training of their library staffs. Reference services (Libraries) Tue, 01 Jan 1957 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/2142/1458 Scientific and Technical Reference Works Since 1950 Shipman, Joseph C. In preparing this paper, the author turned first to Science Reference Notes which is an interesting and useful tool to anyone concerned with scientific and technical reference materials and a ready launching platform for the points which follow. Published by the science libraries of Columbia University, this is a thorough-going report on new reference materials in the sciences. Since most of the science libraries at Columbia contribute to it, the annotations reflect the special concern and interests often lacking in the broader surveys of reference materials. During a three year period, less than half the time under consideration in this paper, Science Reference Notes listed and annotated over three hundred separate works. Since 1950, using the same basis of selection as the editors of Science Reference Notes, nearly one thousand scientific and technical reference works have appeared. Obviously, space does not perimit a thorough description of all these but this growth does | point up the changes in scientific literature since the beginning 'of World War II. These changes stem from three primary facitors: (1) the tremendous increase of the literature itself; (2)the problem of the foreign language publications; and (3) the emergence of new types of materials, such as "Reports ir which began during the war. Reference services (Libraries) Tue, 01 Jan 1957 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/2142/1457 New Sources in the Humanities Northup, Helen F. To discuss in the short space of this paper all the interesting and important new reference sources which have appeared in the humanities in the past seven years is impossible. The humanities cover many things --language and literature, fine arts and religion and philosophy and to select the titles for this paper was to flip a thousand coins. Trends soon become apparent in such a task as this, for example, the hundreds of handbooks and companions which have appeared to give a proper background for reading, viewing, and listening might be termed the Background Trend. Then there is the Know-How Trend, with a flood of books on how to do every- ! thing. The Book Review Digest in five years listed over two hundred books beginning with "How to. ..." There are vast numbers of new editions of old works, some of them with only slight revisions, but all of them sure of a market. Yearbooks have appeared in every area--theatre, ballet, opera--and vie with each other in excellence of illustration and format. Reference services (Libraries) Tue, 01 Jan 1957 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/2142/1456 New Sources in the Social Sciences Probst, Doris J. The social sciences are the most difficult of all the sciences to supply with sufficient reference sources and especially with adequate bibliographic tools. This difficulty, of course, stems from the intrinsic difference between the subject matter and literature of the social sciences and that of the natural sciences. In the latter the elements of measurement and experimentation are comparatively stable and controllable. But the material of the social sciences is man; man and his behavior in society; man who changes and reacts to change. The behavior of man cannot be produced at will under laboratory conditions. It can only be observed and recorded as it happens, and it is this written record with which the social scientist must deal. So enormous and diverse is the record that the social scientist studies only a segment of it, that which reveals man's economic behavior or his political behavior, for instance. Reference services (Libraries) Tue, 01 Jan 1957 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/2142/1455 Cost of Information Service Budington, William S. Any survey of the literature concerning the cost of reference service reveals the fact that the subject is one which has been much discussed but without arriving at any very generally accepted conclusions. About 40 per cent of the writing on the topic is devoted to remarks on how ridiculous it is to think that reference and information service is measurable; about 30 per cent on how ridiculous the results are where it has been attempted; about 20 per cent on reporting results (with many apologies for doing so); and the remaining 10 per cent on straightforward statements of procedures, limitations, and valid interpretations. One of the great difficulties seems to be the confusion or misunderstanding of such terms as "measurement, " "cost, " and "value. " The suggestion that reference and information service can be measured is immediately drowned out with a recital of all the variables of personnel, clientele, physical layout, etc. These have nothing to do with actual "measurement. " They do have everything to do with the use to which the measurement is to be put. "Measurement" is only the comparison of a standard unit with some entity and does not include the comparison of one entity with another. Similarly, one hears the objection that the "value" of a reference answer bears no relation to the time spent in finding it, and therefore why try to do anything? The basis of the objection is valid, indeed; there is no relationship between value and cost. But the objection itself is invalid in its assumption that valuation is the purpose of cost analysis. A cost study attempts, purely and simply, to find out what something costs. What it is worth is something entirely different. Information service can be measured quantitatively and the costs determined but comparisons cannot be made with the data; or the "value" measured. Reference services (Libraries) Tue, 01 Jan 1957 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/2142/1454 The Specifics of Interlibrary Organization Jackson, William Vernon If, in bringing together the library patron and the material he needs, the librarian finds that he has exhausted the resources of his own institution, he turns to those of pther libraries. In fact, it is taken for granted that he will do so; today we do not stop to realize that without library cooperation this would not be possible. There are, of course, many kinds of library cooperation: regional library centers, union lists, subject specialization, cooperative cataloging, exchange of duplicates, joint purchase of supplies, and interlibrary loans --to name but a few. All contribute to better library service, but this paper considers only those which affect reference work especially. Among cooperative devices perhaps the first to come to mind is the union list. In the last seventy-five years the number of union lists in existence has multiplied greatly, and there are a number of reasons why they constitute so successful a type of library cooperation. In the first place, there is neither need for indefinite commitments on the part of the cooperating libraries, nor is it necessary for them to give up anything. The union list, on the other hand, has an immediate practical use for cataloging, for acquisition purposes, for weeding and for locating items either for direct consultation or for interlibrary loan. Reference services (Libraries) Tue, 01 Jan 1957 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/2142/1453 Interlibrary Organization of Reference Service Radmacher, Mary The greatest development in American public library service has been realized in the large cities. These large city "systems" as they are frequently called, provide equality of service to everyone within the area served. The patron of the independent small library, inadequately financed, and therefore poorly staffed and poorly supplied with books and periodicals has the same need as the city dweller for services of skilled librarians using the wealth of materials available in such a library system. As is pointed out in the new Public Library Standards "even though local resources are limited, public officials and librarians have a responsibility to provide full library services to the community through a structure of cooperation and government. " In other words, to combine two of the standards: "Every individual should not only have free library service available in his local community but he should also have access through his local outlet to the full range of modern library facilities provided by regional, state, and federal library agencies." Reference services (Libraries) Tue, 01 Jan 1957 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/2142/1452 Satisfying the Needs of the Community's Library Users Harlan, Harold O. When you, and those associated with you in planning your library's program of service, have defined your objectives and identified the public you seek to serve, it is necessary to consider means of satisfying the needs of the people you serve. It is the function of this paper to explore some possible approaches to the problem of satisfying these needs. .. approaches, many of which will be developed in greater detail in later papers at this conference. Our objective here will be to consider briefly the importance of a librarian's knowledge of the economic, civic, and social patterns which make up the fabric of community life, then the selection of materials which will give the library the informational resources to meet the particular needs of the community. In this development of the library's collection, the role of intelligent, interested citizens can be an important one. Our staff resources must next engage our attention, as we consider the qualifications of the reference librarian and the planning of staff time which will best utilize the special skills of professionally-trained personnel. Since none of our libraries can encompass all of the recorded information which our users may need, we must give continuing consideration to the means of interlibrary organization that will achieve prompt transmission of information between libraries. Finally, we must see that the public is made fully aware of the resources and services that the library offers. Reference services (Libraries) Tue, 01 Jan 1957 00:00:00 GMT