Impress Your Professor: Reviewing Reference

Reference is moving online. It's an obvious fact but one that cannot be stated enough. In the December/January 2008 ASIS&T Bulletin, Jeffrey Pomerantz discusses the need to evaluate online reference services. The article is a straightforward breakdown of how a library may go about evaluating their services. Instead of recapping the entire article, I'd like to discuss an important issue that Pomerantz mentions: privacy.

Pomerantz discusses evaluation from the position of the library. While the transition to digital services has caused problems, when it comes to evaluation, the librarian's job is half done. Online references have statistics making capabilities built into them already: there are timestamps and trackers, server logs and hit counters. A librarian merely needs to click on a file to know who, what, where, and when. Automatic logs of e-mails and instant messages can allow for a more in-depth analysis of reference interactions.

It is here that Pomerantz broaches the subject of privacy. These logs may be handy, but what do they mean for our patrons privacy and confidentiality? Libraries have tended to have a firm stance of privacy; they do not release patron records. In fact, it was a group of librarians in Connecticut who took a stand against privacy issues in the USA Patriot Act.

Patron borrowing records are one thing, but logged conversations are the start of a paper trail that could prove detrimental to our patrons' peace of mind. Person to person conversations all but disappear when they're done. Logged conversations last as long as the file is readable.

In keeping these records, are we librarians opening ourselves up to another level of privacy issues?

Impress Your Professor: Virtual Reference as Lesson

In the December/January Bulletin, Joseph Janes discusses the history of digital/virtual/electronic reference. While the majority of the article simply recaps the growth of technology and how it has affected the reference interaction, Janes does raise some rather interesting questions.

Early in the article, he states how many libraries and their librarians have jumped at the chance to try out new technological resources in their library. But he also adds a cautionary statement: "With scarce time and resources, however, it is not prudent, not to mention maddening and counterproductive, to be forever chasing new technologies." An interesting perspective to say the least, but how does one determine the good and useful technologies from the bad? While it is certainly not prudent to chase all technologies, I would argue that we librarians can't wait around forever. That Golden Idol of Reference Technology Greatness is not going to arrive with our morning cup of coffee. We have to go out and find it ourselves.

Librarianship, in all it's forms, is about looking - looking for the answer, looking for a book, and looking for that new technology or resource that helps our patrons find the information they need. The art of reference has undergone numerous changes and will certainly undergo more in the future. Who knew that one day the ideal of the ancient library of Alexandria might become a digital reality? Technological change is not something to be afraid - it should be embraced whole heartedly.

I'm reminded of an interview I conducted earlier this year for class paper. My interviewee was a reference librarian at a local public library. She had many things to say and I learned more than I had anticipated, but one statement has stood out in my mind more than any other: "Do you learn or are you trained?"

If nothing else, librarians are life long learners. They take a new experience (or technology) and learn from it - then they teach others.


On that note, this will be the last Impress Your Professor for the year. Good luck to everyone with the end of the semester and Happy Holidays.