☼  LAT Reading Room Occasional Papers  ☼  
 No. 3, April 2006

 

In the Service of Learning through Information

   

Renewing Reference Services in OSU Libraries:

Reference Service in Latin american studies, spanish,

and portuguese library collection (LAT)

Edward A. Riedinger

riedinger.4@osu.edu

 

 

What Service Provided        How Service Conducted        Why Service Offered

 

WHAT REFERENCE SERVICE LAT PROVIDES

1.  Reference is one of a range of resources that LAT offers (see http://library.osu.edu/sites/latinamerica/latweb0_matrls&srvcs.htm).  The services of LAT cluster around four main activities:  reference, user education, collection development, and administration.  Below is an example of how this work divided during a week of spring quarter this year:

Monday 9 May 2005
REF in-person
-- Search Le Nez ... etre (19th century French medical treatise) availability for class faculty.  Our copy missing.  National Library of Medicine will make copy of its volume (only other in US).  Half hour.
-- Faculty request on how to research on early 20th century Brazilian Ambassador (to US) Oliveira Lima and any connections with Stanford U.  Half hour.
-- Student inquiry regarding Senator Benedita da Silva for UG paper, modern Brazilian cultural history.  Hour and half.
REF  by e-mail
-- Search new Cultural Studies book edited by faculty member.  Why we don't have?  Approval plan glitch?
COLEC DEV
-- GOBI orders.
-- Orders from Dolphin special catalog (mid-June order deadline).  2 hours.
-- Order request by e-mail from faculty for Argentine title.  Check BA vendor if available.
-- Clarify with Joe Marino location of gift book.
ADMIN
-- Straighten Room 300.  Half hour.
-- Phone request for appointment.
-- Checking e-mail.  About an hour throughout day.

Tuesday 10 May 2005
REF in-person
-- Student from OSU-Newark for materials on Latin Am. poetry (19th-20th centuries) -- No-show appointment.
REF by e-mail
-- Background on School for International Training-Vermont (info to Jim)
REF by phone
-- Library resources for research on Latin American television
USER ED
-- Orientation by phone to use of OSCAR for student from OSU-Newark
COLEC DEV
-- GOBI orders.  Half hour
-- Supervising GAA for Dolphin spring orders.
-- Checking new movie titles from LAVA Video.
ADMIN
-- Checking e-mail during day.  Hour
-- Examine full professor promotion file.  Half hour.
-- Checking with IT for Connexion set up.
-- Supervise student taking un-barcoded books from stacks for transfer to depository
-- Check Rm. 300
-- Check with Sonja about being in spring commencement

Wednesday 11 May 2005
REF in-person
-- Help student find copy of Casa de Bernarda Alba in stacks
REF by e-mail
-- Follow up on Brannner’s Oliveira Lima research
USER ED
-- Orientation for two IFLA visitors on how to find OSUL books in Georgian or in Urdu
-- Orientation to D. Viscarri on how to strengthen library research support at OSU-Newark for his classes.
-- Communication via latlist of publications available from ECLAC web site.
COLEC DEV
-- Query vendor in Spain for purchase of book ILL cannot provide
-- Query to faculty member about purchase of Argentine films/videos
-- Clarify with Brian procedures for ordering from Dolphin catalogs.  Half hour
-- Research books on course about Latin American youth for faculty member.  Query vendors.  Hour.
-- Establish OSCAR link to ECLAC publications web site.
-- Check with Taller Lenateros (Chiapas) regarding availability of their books preserving Mayan women's oral tradition.
ADMIN
-- Orientation for Mel on transfer of Manchete to STX
-- Read MLRRS heads notes
-- Checking e-mail.  About an hour throughout day.

Thursday 12 May 2005
REF in-person
-- Assistance for student doing paper on Horacio Quiroga, orientation to research resources
USER ED
-- Tutorial for student on use of LATweb.  Half hour
COLEC DEV
-- Background reading on DRC OhioLINK
-- Follow-up on Taller Lenateros Maya (Chiapas) orders.  Half hour.
-- Dolphin (British vendor) orders. Hour
ADMIN
-- Attend KB workshop at SEL during a.m. and p.m.  Two hours and half.
-- Read News Notes.
-- Register for Social Capital and Networks Conference (20 June) of OSU Sociology Department at Columbus Convention Center.  Info to Joe and Jim.
-- Begin screening for student summer job applicants.
-- Check and sign student time sheets.
-- Checking e-mail.  About an hour throughout day.

The principal activities are reference, conducted in-person, by e-mail, and by phone, complemented by user education.  Other activities, collection development and administration, are in support of reference and user education.  One is always “on call” throughout the day for reference and user education.  In-person reference is generally “drop-in.”  The tide of e-mails is always sweeping in.  The phone rings…  One of the most challenging things to do during a day is concentrate on completing a message or text.  There are constant interruptions.  Many of these may prove pleasant and productive encounters.  However, even now, it is still unsettling to me that I can’t work behind a closed office door or pace messages with a secretary.

 

2.  HOW REFERENCE SERVICE IS CONDUCTED IN LAT

The ideal reference consultation is the in-person tutorial.  These generally last from 20 to 30 minutes.  A user may enter my office with the statement, “I can’t find anything on juvenile delinquency in Mexico.”  “Have you checked the catalog?”  “No, I just used the computers downstairs.”

 

Obviously, just from this small exchange, there is need for more than just an answer.  Orientation to basic concepts (catalog, index, …) and techniques (keyword search, subject searching, …) need attention.  Inviting users to work at my computer, I accompany them at they go through the research section of LATweb, (http://library.osu.edu/sites/latinamerica/latweb1_research.htm).  I designed it as the template for all of my instruction.  Any tutorial, consultation, or class I give is essentially following its structure of.  Working through the web site with the user also allows more precise insight into the person’s information objective.  The real question behind the query above may be to know more about drug-related youth violence and police brutality in Mexico City. 

 

When the session is completed, it is important to give the user my business card so that s/he can pursue follow-up.  I often open an e-mail message to the person, while present, and progressively enter into it any references or links we find so that s/he has a record to review and consult later.

 

How people come to contact me occurs mainly from faculty and student recommendations.  I have posted considerable publicity through my web sites and office brochures.  However, I find this unit-generated publicity is not sufficient.  A much greater effort is needed throughout the library system to let users know of the array of specialists they can contact by e-mail or phone.  There must be more ample, consistent, and regular system-wide communication of specialist availability, backing up the communication efforts of the unit.

 

3.  WHY LAT OFFERS REFERENCE SERVICE

Ultimately the most important thing that an academic library can do is to ensure that it is imparting a sound knowledge of how to use its materials.  It does not matter if a library has one million or ten million volumes and is ranked hundredth or first.  If such calculations are in inverse proportion to the number of users who can negotiate the web of a library’s holdings, for what purpose have these resources been gathered?
 
It is within reference service that one has the most opportune moment to impart user education and library resourcefulness.  At the point where patrons are asking a question, one can suggest learning the techniques whereby they can respond to their future questions.  The process of diffusing user education throughout the reference process is a benefit of extraordinary consequences for users.  Acquiring library skills will affect not just users’ academic life but also the duration of their lives in terms of intellectual, personal, and professional enhancements.  Becoming “information resourceful” is a key requirement of our times.  No one should doubt the relevance for academic librarianship of being “in the service of learning through information.” 
 
OSU Libraries are going through very significant administrative and physical changes.  Little may be fundamentally changed, however, if we do not enhance the relevance of the resources we hold with the quickening skills of educating users.  A book without a reader or a database without a viewer is no more than stranded ink and pixels.
 
The most distinguishing thing that OSU Libraries can do is to change itself into a vital learning environment:  offering not just a learning commons but a common environment of learning.  This will prove an uncommon library achievement.

 

The most important step in renewing reference services in OSU Libraries is for reference librarians to examine themselves regarding why they provide it.  Do we recognize the relevance of reference as a learning and not just an answering process?  Do we recognize this dimension as something that enhances our personal and professional lives, our institutional mission?  Only insofar as this commitment is internalized in each librarian will there be a prospect of sustained renewal. 

 

There can be a renaissance of reference.