Do you work here?

The phrase “reference service” is not used much outside of libraries. In fact, sometimes it’s not even known outside of libraries. The closest that Answers.com (which searches a collection of online dictionaries and encyclopedias) is in the results for “reference work” in which the entry from Wikipedia at the time makes the aside, “Reference work may also refer to the work that librarians perform at a library reference desk.” You have to go on to the entry for “library reference desk” to get any information about what goes on there.

Within libraries, it’s used almost without exception. Pretty much every library provides this service, but as for what that service includes, it varies widely, from involving only being available for simple questions about the libraries resources and services to lumping almost everything in the library that’s not “nailed down” such as information literacy, literature searching, marketing and promotion, creation of guides and tutorials, et cetera, with the standard question answering and research support somewhere in the middle.

The National Criminal Justice Reference Service uses it rather well. It’s not clear if there are qualified librarians behind the operation from the web site, but it does claim to be a “resource offering… information to support research, policy, and program development”. If there are librarians working there, it’s odd that they then use the term “library”, not as the name of the group providing the service but in a very narrow and common way, as the collection of resources available to and through this Reference Service and the services directly connected to the collection (e.g. donations, ILL, new purchases, etc.). The phrase is used similarly by Reference Service Press.

And sometimes it’s used to describe search engines or other online reference sites, for example Cichlid Press Reference Service or Gale Group Marketing & Advertising Reference Service.

The definition of a “reference transaction” used by the Reference and User Services Association is rather broad but for the final few words: “An information contact that involves the use, recommendation, interpretation, or instruction in the use of one or more information sources, or knowledge of such sources, by a member of the reference or information staff.” (italics added by me)  This is rather broad in terms of what is actually going on, allowing such things as the use of a database or search engine by the user to be a reference transaction, except that at the end, it says it much be used, recommended, interpreted, or instructed about by specific a library staff member.

This is a fine definition for “standard” use (it was taken from the American National Standard for Library and Information Statistics (ANSI Z39-1983)) but it leaves reference service, a vital and central part of any library, hanging on why people must be included in the definition.  Shouldn’t it be understood by the actions in the definition alone, that people need to do it, that a simple, somewhat organized pile of data wouldn’t cut it?  At the very least, there should be something in the definition that mentions the effort taken to ensure communication and comprehension on the part of the “transactee”.  When I’m at the desk, I’m not simply using, recommending, interpreting, or instructing someone in the use of “sources or knowledge of sources”.  I’m entering into a conversation with the person at the other side of the desk/telephone/email/IM/etc.  Before I ever get to any source of information or even knowledge of such sources, I’m trying to understand what the patron is asking for.

Just today, a person approached the desk asking if he could “use the projector screen in the study room”.  At that moment, one of the non-librarians was standing such that she was the first person to whom the question was addressed.  She was somewhat bewildered by the question, but being accustomed to patrons not asking questions in the “right way”, I immediately took over, asking questions and interpreting her responses to find out that she really wanted to know if there were projectors available to use.  Not a huge jump of reasoning, but it’s a good (and common) example of how providing reference services is more than the above definition.