Christina's LIS Rant

This is the first in a series discussing things that librarians do.  Stephanie Willen Brown pointed me to this hilarious video from UT Arlington.


Actually, the other librarian's reference interview isn't the model of perfection, either, but we'll talk about that.

The purpose of a reference interview is for the librarian to understand the patron's information need - what information will be useful to them to resolve a problem or learn about something or whatever.  When done right, the patron can go from a sort of general unease (anomalous state of knowledge[1]) to information in hand/on screen, confident [2], and off to make the world a better place. The librarian and the patron converge on a shared understanding of the problem, that can be translated into a query or a jaunt to the shelf.

 So this is pretty complicated right?  Taylor lays out the steps to get from this unease to actually putting terms into a search engine.
1. the actual, but unexpressed need for information (the visceral need);
2. the conscious, within-brain description of the need (the conscious need);
3. the formal statement of the need (the formalized need);
4. the question as presented to the information system (the compromised need) [3].

Research has found over time, that librarians only answer about 55% of the questions correctly, completely, and with a citation [4].  Part of the reason for this is lack of a decent reference interview.  Like in the video - when someone asks for China - (you're hearing it not reading it) - do they want china, China, Chyna?  What about China?  This is also why a TREC track with a librarian in the loop beat other systems for interactive information retrieval.

The state of Maryland requires a 24 hour class for all public library librarians and library associates who work the reference desk.  Librarians are subsequently coached and evaluated on modeling these behaviors the remainder of their time in the system.  Other libraries don't tend to discuss this so much, I've found. Here are their steps, which are well proved.

First - be welcoming and open!  Smile!
Second - open questions like: tell me more about what you need?  
Third - probing questions, closed questions, repeating or rephrasing the question to make sure you've got it
Fourth - find the information
End by following up with the customer whether you completely answered their question, or gave them enough information to get started. This step is super important - I've gotten all the way to this and had the customer say, well no, actually, I really wanted x instead of y.

Some things that sort of depend more on the context:

• provide instruction or give answer?  university and school libraries probably do a lot more instruction whereas public libraries do more answering but this is all situation specific, too, so I'll ask or I'll just talk through all of my search steps and show them what I'm doing on the screen to sneak in a little instruction
• ask why they need the information?  depends on the situation
• walk them to the shelf?  give them a map? e-mail something?  in Maryland you are required to walk the patron to the shelf but in a large academic library, you might not be able to truck up to the 6th floor or something.

Online via chat or e-mail adds in some additional problems - particularly if your patron e-mails you 3 words.   There has to be some back and forth, and sometimes this back and forth really helps the patron, too, because it helps them articulate their problem.  It's easier getting to common ground if you've worked with that particular patron before, but you must not fall into the trap of thinking you know what the person wants based on some stereotype or past interaction.  What's funny, is when you get a reluctant teen who starts out all "whatever" and then ends up unloading angst - and the parent thinks you're a miracle worker because their child hasn't said three words to them for 2 years :)

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[1] Belkin, N. J. (1980). Anomalous states of knowledge as a basis for information retrieval. Canadian Journal of Information Science, 5, 133-143.
[2] Kuhlthau, C. C. (1991). Inside the search process: Information seeking from the user's perspective. Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 42, 361
[3] Taylor, R. S. (1968). Question-negotiation and information seeking in libraries. College & Research Libraries, 29(3), 178-194. (I actually just copied that off of my review of this article for EBLIP)
[4] Hernon, P. & McClure,C.R. (1986, April 15) Unobtrusive reference testing: the 55 percent rule. Library Journal,111(7), 37-41.