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Readers' advisory vs reference: a difference of stance

E.E. Lawrence (Department of Library and Information Science, School of Communication and Information, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey, USA)
Virginia Sharpe (Department of Philosophy, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey, USA)

Journal of Documentation

ISSN: 0022-0418

Article publication date: 4 July 2024

Issue publication date: 25 September 2024

95

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to determine how we ought to distinguish between reference and readers' advisory (RA) service, given the latter’s turn toward a whole collection approach. In other words, the paper answers this question: If both reference and RA librarians aim to meet patrons’ information needs and may theoretically do so using the same materials, then how are we to differentiate the two services conceptually?

Design/methodology/approach

In this conceptual paper, we posit that we can distinguish between RA and reference using Louise Rosenblatt’s theory of the aesthetic transaction. With this theory in hand, we can redefine the service distinction in terms of the stance – aesthetic or efferent – that the patron expects to take toward the material they seek.

Findings

On our account, the reader’s desired stance becomes a kind of hermeneutical lens through which a library worker may productively evaluate plausible pathways and materials. An aesthetic lens is characteristic of RA; it makes features of potential aesthetic transactions between a particular reader and a particular text (or genre or author’s oeuvre) salient.

Originality/value

The proposed account constitutes a novel application of Rosenblattian response theory, one that grounds and refines the going view that RA’s proper focus is on supporting a particular sort of experience rather than providing particular sorts of texts. This theoretical emendation also better aligns the service distinction with contemporary conceptualizations of RA as a “whole collection” service. Important practical and philosophical implications follow from the new account.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

The research leading to this paper was supported by a Eugene Garfield Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship awarded by the Beta Phi Mu International Honor Society.

Citation

Lawrence, E.E. and Sharpe, V. (2024), "Readers' advisory vs reference: a difference of stance", Journal of Documentation, Vol. 80 No. 6, pp. 1442-1457. https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-03-2024-0071

Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2024, Emerald Publishing Limited

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