The document summarizes the history of reference services in libraries from 1876 to present day. It describes Samuel Green's 1876 paper which established the concept of modern reference services where librarians actively engage with users and answer their questions. It outlines the characteristics and services Green advocated for, which parallel many reference services still used today. It then discusses how reference services developed throughout the late 19th/early 20th century with the establishment of library schools and changing views of women's roles in librarianship.
1. IS 245 Information Access
INTRODUCTION
– Goals & Assignments
– Portals & Guidebooks
Mary Niles Maack
UCLA Professor Emerita
2. "The Desirableness of Establishing Personal Relations
between Librarians and Readers."
At the 1876 American Library
Association conference
Samuel Swett Green, librarian
of Worcester MA Public
Library, presented a paper
that forms the basis of modern
library reference service and
argues that librarians must
interact with library users and
answering their questions.
3. Green wrote in 1876:
Scholars and persons of high social position …have confidence …to make
known their wishes. Modest men in humbler walks of life, … need
encouragement be fore they become ready to say feely what they
want.
Examples:
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artisan
wall-painter
marble worker
business man
citizen building a house
home-maker
member of the board of trade
A person emigrating
boys & girls
4. Characteristics & Abilities Needed by Librarians in 1876
Mental qualities
desirable or requisite
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Courteous disposition
Agreeable manners
Sympathy
Cheerfulness
Patience
Enthusiasm
Mental Habits
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“the habit of mental
classification which a librarian
acquires so readily comes to his
aid.
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He sees at once in what in what
department of knowledge the
description sought for may be
found and brings the inquirer
authoritative treatises in that
department
5. Services advocated by Green and their parallels today
1876
2014
1. Provide answers for adults and
children
1. Ready reference-adults &
children
2. Guide users to sources; referral
to other libraries
2. Bibliographic assistance and
referral to other libraries; Interlibrary loan (ILL0
3. Teach users to find materia, use
reference books
3. Information literacy, bibliographic
instruction
4. Provide research assistance
5. Term paper help
6. Suggest good reading
6. Readers’ advisory service
6. “Good Results” of Reference Services
(Green, 1876)
By establishing good relations with readers
and by helping inquirers the librarian is able to:
1. Gain “the respect and confidence of readers” and thus
“stimulate the love of study” and provide them
with “the best sources of information”.
2. “Find out what books the actual users of the library need”
and thus know what subjects and level of materials to buy for
the library.
3. “Make the library popular” and ensure that citizens
believe that it “can not be dispensed with.”
4. “Get readers to take out wholesome books and such works
that are adapted to their capacity and grade of enlightenment.”
7. Principles Advocated by Green
– 1. Respect the reader’s privacy and “reticence.”
– 2. The library should aim for neutrality, never advocate one
particular side on controversial issues.
– 3. Never offer legal or medical counsel.
– 4. Offer authoritative sources--lead readers to the “best
books.”
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ALA Motto:
“Best books for the greatest number at the least cost.”
8. Advising a reader on “ the best book he is willing to
read.”
“Place in your circulating
department … a cultivated
woman … who heartily
enjoys works of the
imagination,
but whose taste is
educated.
She must be a person of
pleasant manners, and
while of proper
dignity, ready to unbend
and of social disposition.
…[She] must have tact and
be careful not to attempt too
much.”
9. Columbia School of Library Economy
Class of 1888 with Melvil Dewey in the center.
By 1890 a course on reference service was offered
by New York State School Library Service in Albany
10. Mary Wright Plummer
founded Pratt library school, 1890
Plummer believed that women were more
sympathetic and approachable--therefore
excellent for reference work.
However, she rejected the term
“library
hostess” and preferred use of the term
“information desk.”
1900 - This photo was taken at the ALA
conference in Montreal. Plummer went from
Montreal to Europe where she served as a
U.S. delegate to the International Congress of
Libraries, Paris. She also staffed the
American library exhibit which won a prize at
the Exposition Universelle.
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11. Library & Information Science at UCLA
The School of Library Service was
founded here in 1958
Graduate School of Library &
Information Science 1971
The Department of Information
Studies in the Graduate School of
Education & Information Studies
1993
To the left: POWELL LIBRARY --now the library for
undergraduate students
12. From the
Graduate School of Library and Information Science
to the Department of Information Studies
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Books, printed materials
and electronic & multimedia materials
Bibliography
and webliography & filmography
Cataloging
metadata
Libraries
and archives, electronic databases,
film preservation …
13. Lawrence Clark Powell
Powell wrote:
"I saw the University Library’s
stock of 285,000 volumes
increase to 2,000,000, …a staff
of 35 grow to 300, and UCLA
become known internationally
as a dynamic place of books
and learning.”
14. UCLA Libraries
UCLA's library system has:
• Over 9,000,000 books
• 70,000 serials
• 12 libraries
• 11 other archives, reading
rooms, and research centers.
• It is among the top 15 largest
library systems in the United
States, and
• among the top 10 university
library systems in the nation
15. UCLA Libraries
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Arts Library
Louise M. Darling Biomedical Library
College (undergraduate) Library (Powell Library)
Hugh & Hazel Darling Law Library
Eugene and Maxine Rosenfeld Management Library
Music Library
Charles E. Young Research Library
Science and Engineering Library
Southern Regional Library Facility
Gonda Family University Elementary School Library
William Andrews Clark Memorial Library [7]
16. The 10 campuses of the University of California
All collections are on Melvyl & cooperate in the CDL
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19. California Digital Library / CDL
• Published Works
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Full text periodicals
Databases
Indexes to periodical articles
Digital reference works
Online Archive of California
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Inventories of collections
Finding aids
Texts of some documents
Images/photgraphs
22. IS 245 INFORMATION ACCESS
INSTRUCTIONAL GOALS
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USERS
RESOURCES & SEARCH STRATEGIES
To acquaint students with selected
information resources (in both print
and electronic form)
through exercises that provide an
opportunity to gain experience in
their use.
-- To offer a preliminary introduction to the
research literature on the information
needs and information seeking behaviors
of different user groups and
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To encourage students to reflect on how
such research can aid practitioners in the
provision of appropriate and effective
reference service.
23. IS 245 INFORMATION ACCESS
INSTRUCTIONAL GOALS
SERVICES
To provide an overview of
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the practice of reference and information service in a wide range of
organizational settings and
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to familiarize students with major issues and trends of concern to information
professionals who provide such services.
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24. Textbook & Readings
• Encyclopedia of Library and
Information Sciences, 3rd ed
– Selected articles on reference
services, disciplinary literature
& information seeking
25. Required text:
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Part I Concepts and Processes
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Part II Information sources and
their use
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Fourth Edition, 2011
History
Ethics
Reference interview
User instruction
Service to specific populations
Selection & Evaluation
Directories
Almanacs
Dictionaries& encyclopedias
Biographical sources
Bibliographies, indexing &
abstracting sources
26. deep web / invisible web Publicly
accessible information available via
the World Wide Web but not
retrievable using search engines
that rely on crawlers or spiders, for
example, data in file formats such
as PDF, database content
accessible only by query. The
number of documents available in
the deep web is estimated to be
400-500 times greater than the
amount of content retrievable via
conventional search engines (the
"surface Web"),
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29. Part II: Outline
– Types of reference books
– Bibliographies of bibliographies & guides
– Portals
• Besigned by librarians
• Reference portals for libraries
– Ready Reference Sources
• Dictionaries
• Encyclopedias
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31. Guides to the literature
• Printed guides to literature of a
field are like travel guides
because they:
– Depict the intellectual
landscape
– Show relationships
between various works
– Indicate key authors
– May discuss different
schools of thought or
subdivisions of the
discipline
32. Guide to Reference Books
published by the American Library Association
• 1902
1st edition
• 1954 7th edition
• 1986 10th edition
• 1996 11th edition
33. Bibliography of bibliographies
• Begins with general reference
works
• Organized by classified subject
in a unique alphanumeric
system
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36. Annotations give scope, evaluative comments, and establish importance &
relationship with other works.
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42. Walford's Guide to Reference Material:
• British guide first published in
1959
• Issued in 3 volumes by the
Library Association
• 8th edition named in honor of
A. J. Walford, the first compiler
43. The New Walford (TNW) Volume 1:
Science, Technology and Medicine
Facet, 2006 (with CILIP: the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals
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The first volume of this
radically different guide.
provides a pathway through
the huge quantity of
information now accessible via
the web.
• The types of material cited
have been greatly widened to
reflect the revolution brought
about by the use of networked
information;
• Print resources are included
where these are still valuable.
Price: £149.95
44. The New Walford (TNW) Volume 1:
Science, Technology and Medicine
Facet, 2005 Review
• The changed and changing information environment is seriously taken
into account by the authors.
• The impact of it on the reference work and resources is both discussed in
introduction and visible in selection and presentation of the material.
• The whole range of resource categories included in the guide is displayed
on the p. xviii as the elements constituting the 'information universe'.
• This could be criticized as a very simplistic picture, but it also has a
pragmatic function to explain the grouping of the material within subject
categories and fulfils it in a very satisfactory manner
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Macevičiūtė, E. (2005). Review of: Lester, Ray (Ed.) The New Walford Guide to reference resources. Vol. 1: Science,
Technology and Medicine. London: Facet Publishing, 2005. Information Research, 11(1), review no. R194 [Available
at: http://informationr.net/ir/reviews/revs194.html]
45. The New Walford Vol 2 The Social Sciences
Facet, Novermber 2007 £149.95
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Psychology
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Sociology
Politics
Law
Defense & Security
Government & Welfare
Economics
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Finance
Industries & Utilities
Business & Management
Marketing
Information & Communication
Education & Learning
Sports & Recreation
Human Geography
Area Studies
46. The New Walford Vol. 3 Arts, Humanities & General Reference
Facet £149.95(announced for release in 2009—not yet available)
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The New Walford highlights the best resources to use when undertaking a search
for accurate and relevant information, saving you precious time and effort.
It covers print sources and an extensive range of e-reference sources such as
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digital databanks,
digital reference services,
electronic journal collections,
meta-search engines,
networked information services,
open archives,
websites of premier organizations in both the public and private sectors.
Rather than supplying a list of all available known resources as a web search
engine might, The New Walford subject specialists have carefully selected and
evaluated available resources to provide a definitive list of the most appropriate
and useful.