Doing the Work of Reference: Practical Tips for Excelling as a Reference Librarian

Become more versatile, competent, and resourceful with these practical suggestions!Becoming a first-class reference librarian demands proficiency in a wide range of skills. Doing the Work of Reference offers sound advice for the full spectrum of your responsibilities. Though many aspects of a reference librarian's work are changing with astonishing speed, the classic principles in this volume will never go out of date. This comprehensive volume begins with hints for orienting yourself to a new job and concludes with ideas for serving the profession. On the way, Doing the Work of Reference covers such diverse topics as working with student assistants, offering reference services to remote users, and keeping up your professional development. In addition, you will find strategies for dealing with technological change--not high-tech information that will become obsolete before the ink is dry, but ways of approaching the process of change that will work today, next week, and ten years from now.Doing the Work of Reference will help you increase your competence in: getting along with other staff members marketing the library to users and faculty handling ephemeral materials keeping students’attention in library instruction courses maintaining good relations with faculty increasing your subject knowledge and much more!This comprehensive guide is an essential handbook for librarians in the trenches. Whether you are a new librarian or a veteran at the reference desk, Doing the Work of Reference will help you burnish your skills.

Table of Contents:
Contents Introduction THE KEYNOTE Reference Librarianship: A Guide for the 21st Century THE ORIENTING FUNCTION Orientation to Reality “I Got the Job! Now What Do I Do?”: A Practical Guide for New Reference Librarians Now What? Starting Your First Professional Academic Reference Position “ON THE DESK” Going the Extra Mile: Customer Service with a Smile Cooperation and Competition at the Reference Desk On the Fly BI: Reaching and Teaching from the Reference Desk OUR CHALLENGES Thinking About Reference Service Paradigms and Metaphors Taking Control: A Reference Approach to the Internet Humanities Reference Librarians in the Electronic Age: Strategies for Integrating Traditional and On-Line Resources in an Academic Library A CAUTIONARY NOTE Readin', Writtin' [sic], 'Rithmetic: Reference Desk Redux RESPONDING WHEN UNSURE Phillostachys Aurea--Didn't He Work with Socrates? Reference Work in Science Libraries by Librarians Who Are Not Scientists GETTING SOME ASSISTANCE FOR OURSELVES “Do You Have Any Information on the Goth Lifestyle?” Or How Does a Reference Librarian Keep Up-to-Date? The Librarian's Library: Fugitive Reference Files Training, Supervising, and Evaluating Student Information Assistants Integrating Informal Professional Development into the Work of Reference Acquiring Subject Knowledge to Provide Quality Reference Service LOOKING AT OUR USERS Undergraduate Perceptions of the Reference Collection and the Reference Librarian in an Academic Library Reference Assistance to Remote Users REACHING OUT Faculty: An Essential Resource for Reference Librarians Marketing Reference Resources and Services Through a University Outreach Program Selling the Library from the Reference Desk: Service Points as Advertisements WORKING IN A TEACHING LIBRARY The A, B, Z's of Bibliographic Instruction: Using Real-Life Analogies to Foster Understanding Wake Up That Back Row! Interactive Library Instruction Without Hands-On Student Computers The Development of a First-Year Student Library Instruction Program at Duke University SERVING THE PROFESSION The Professional Development of Reference Librarians: Implications of Research, Publication, and Service “Be All that You Can Be”: Developing and Marketing Professionalism in Academic Reference Librarianship Service to the Profession: Definitions, Scope, and Value Index Reference Notes Included