The Human Side of Reference and Information Services in Academic Libraries: Adding Value in the Digital World

Frank Parry (Loughborough University, Loughborough, UK)

The Electronic Library

ISSN: 0264-0473

Article publication date: 20 November 2007

276

Keywords

Citation

Parry, F. (2007), "The Human Side of Reference and Information Services in Academic Libraries: Adding Value in the Digital World", The Electronic Library, Vol. 25 No. 6, pp. 792-793. https://doi.org/10.1108/02640470710837227

Publisher

:

Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2007, Emerald Group Publishing Limited


The authors of this book all come from the California State University, Long Beach, and the various chapters form a case study of the impact of technology on reference services in libraries in the new century. Technology and the ease with which information seekers find what they want enable many in the academic community to bypass the library or question its usefulness. The central premise behind this book is that librarians can – or should – add a human dimension to the process of finding, organizing, interpreting and evaluating information which the academic community may find hard to get anywhere else.

Each chapter title starts with the words “The impact of technology on  … ” and then goes on to consider different aspects of information provision. The focus of the opening chapter is on the academic community and it spends some time analysing “a new species” called the millennial generation, i.e. the students born since the early 1980s. It is this generation which appears to be reluctant to use libraries and which will apparently need the most convincing to see the value of the human touch that librarians can provide. The rest of the academic community's generational groups with their different responses to learning, technology and information are considered in lesser detail. I found some of the generalisations a little hard to accept, but the fairly simple message for librarians which underlines this chapter is quite valid: know your academic community and plan your services accordingly.

After this the chapters concentrate on the practical measures to add human value to reference services and use technology. There is a good chapter on staffing and the different levels of skills needed to provide specialist information assistance or just help with mundane tasks. Two chapters on physical and intellectual access to services deal with the challenges of delivering and understanding the process of information seeking in the digital age. Here, the “human side” of the title refers to the ways in which librarians can hone the information skills of the various groups mentioned in the first chapter as well as making access as trouble‐free as possible. The final chapter on evaluating reference and information services is the most practical and useful, packed with hints and useful tips.

There is a lengthy, up‐to‐date bibliography and index, plus a copy of (presumably) the California State University Library's new database checklist form in an appendix which seems to have been chucked in for good measure.

This is a slim book and some chapters are a little light on detail. The central theme of the usefulness of libraries in the digital age is becoming somewhat over‐familiar and there is little here about which practitioners are not already aware. Nevertheless, I did find the study of the millennial generation thought‐provoking and there was enough to make it an interesting read. Not essential but useful.

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