Know it All, Find it Fast: An A‐Z Guide to the Enquiry Desk

Citation

Humphreys, G. (2003), "Know it All, Find it Fast: An A‐Z Guide to the Enquiry Desk", Program: electronic library and information systems, Vol. 37 No. 1, pp. 65-66. https://doi.org/10.1108/00330330310460644

This is rather good. As the authors state, there are still very few materials available to help front‐line staff – often non‐professional – to develop their reader enquiry skills. This book is designed to do just that, as well as to offer the more experienced among us a quick crib in a crisis, or when the mind simply goes blank at the crucial moment. I have used it myself – and it works.

It differs from the excellent guides by Grogan, Owen and others in providing “an easily searchable, fully cross‐referenced A‐Z list of around 150 of the subject areas most frequently handled at enquiry desks”. The practical experience of the authors scores here and most of the subjects you will need are covered. The cross‐referencing is not entirely watertight, however. Anyone wishing to start their own company will find nothing under the heading “Companies”, nor any references to start‐ups elsewhere; however, it is all there under “Business – setting up”, which of course implies many more sorts of enterprise than “companies”.

The sections are helpfully arranged to assist in establishing a context, and begin with some “Typical questions” likely to be posed in each subject area, then “Considerations” (what to take into account, to be aware of, to ask the reader about in order to ensure that s/he appreciates the scope of the subject and is clear, eventually if not immediately, about what information is required), followed by “Where to look” (encompassing printed and electronic sources, including Web addresses – mostly free, specialist bodies, etc.). Where appropriate there is also a “tips and pitfalls” section (under “Job interviews”: “Avoid comments on the merits or problems of individual companies/organisations. You simply do not know if it is a good job or a good place to work”; under “Nationality and immigration”: “Check which nationality is of concern before rowing up the wrong creek!”; under “Newspapers”: “Some newspapers have more than one edition, so that, even if someone has the correct date and page number, the item may not be in the issue the library has”, and so on).

Inevitably the compilation process has been overtaken by time, with new editions of some reference works having been published in the meantime (e.g. there is a new Oxford Companion to Music; and International Who’s Who in Music is now published by Europa, not IBC). We all have our own preferences (Willings and BRAD are there but not the, to my mind, more user‐friendly Benn’s; and I am surprised not to see the excellent, annual Tele‐Tunes as a source of theme music and music used in television commercials), but if the editors’ preferences are occasionally different from yours it will not diminish the value of the book. It is useful for spotting gap‐pluggers for your stock, too. It appears primarily to be a guide to UK sources, but not exclusively. The authors state that “a general, non‐specialist service is assumed. This is not a book for the specialist”. Nevertheless, many specialists will find it very useful (even specialists do not have specialist knowledge of everything!), for it is based “on the reality of everyday enquiries”.

This book deserves a wide circulation and I hope CILIP will promote it energetically – and encourage the authors regularly to produce revised editions. And if anything graphically illustrates the scope of a reference librarian’s task and the skills involved (“one of the most difficult, least understood, and most neglected of subjects”), this does. Copies please to the Audit Commission, national press, local authority chief executives, and all others who think public access to the Internet has rendered us expendable; our skills are now needed more than ever!