Reference Services Review: Volume 10 Issue 4

Love Canal in the Reference Stacks

James Rettig

During the 1940s and early 1950s, the Hooker Chemical and Plastics Corp. buried metal drums in the earth in Niagara Falls, New York. The drums, hundreds of them, contained…

Personal Choice

Robert Pierson

From the point of view of reference service, the crucial fact about my desert island is that I am its sole human resident: I am therefore the sole potential recipient of any…

Women Studies: A Reference Collection for Public Libraries

Beth Stafford

The past decade has seen an enormous amount of publication and research focusing on the concerns of women. As feminist scholarship expands, publication about women and women's…

Drug Information Sources: For Academic and Public Libraries

Elizabeth A. Nies

The health movement that has been sweeping this country has given rise to increased consumer awareness of both prescription and nonprescription medications. One of several…

Film Studies: The Periodical Indexes

Kim N. Fisher

Interest in motion picture studies has grown rapidly over the past dozen years. A logical consequence of this interest has been the development of several retrospective and…

Breaking Up Is Hard To Do

Kathleen W. Craver

During my early years as a junior high school librarian, I was frequently beseiged with requests for heart‐throbbing love stories and mysteries. However, as the years passed and…

Reference Serials

Judith B. Quinlan, Harriet V. Leonard, Virginia Gilbert, Carol J. Veitch, Jack Lipkind, Patricia Turner, David Pilachowski

One of the more popular exhibits at the ALA meeting in Philadelphia in July was the online demonstration of the Academic American Encyclopedia. Clusters of librarians gathered to…

Online News Retrieval Systems: Evaluations and Library Applications

Stephen Smith

Developments in the technology of electronic transmission of information are rapidly transforming the tools available to the general public for gathering information about current…

Libraries Online: Cooperative Database

Susan Cady, Christine Roysdon, Sharon L. Siegler

The advent of computerized literature searching of on‐line databases has convinced librarians that a significant increase in both the quantity and quality of reference service can…

Bibliographic Instruction: Is It A Discipline?

Hannelore B. Rader

Only recently has the library literature included several publications concerned with a conceptual foundation for bibliographic instruction, thus demonstrating the beginnings of…

NFAIS: Focus for U.S. Secondary Services

M. Lynne Neufeld

The National Federation of Abstracting and Information Services (NFAIS) is a non‐profit, private organization with a membership of approximately 47 organizations. Most of these…

Microcomputers for Libraries: An Overview

William H. Warden, Bette M. Warden

Microcomputers are rapidly becoming commonplace in libraries today and will become even more so as prices fall and capabilities increase. Microcomputers can provide a wide range…

Citation Training: Why and How

Stuart M. Basefsky

Properly citing material in footnote or bibliography formats is an art and/or skill. It requires a thorough knowledge of (1) publication types (books, periodicals, symposia…

Documents Lost: Or, The “List of Special Materials”

John A. McGeachy

As required by law, the U.S. Government Printing Office issues the Monthly Catalog of United States Government Publications to serve as the “comprehensive index of public…

Documents To The People: Long Island

Diane Eidelman, Masako Yukawa, Estelle Herskovitz

In April, 1981, the Depository Library Council to the Public Printer, an advisory body appointed by the United States Assistant Public Printer, recommended that the Superintendent…

User‐Oriented Reference Service

W. Keith McCoy

About two years ago, when I took up my present duties, it was pointed out to me by the Assistant Director that when the telephone rang in the Reference Department, it was to be…