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The purpose of this paper is to discuss whether the outcomes of a reference transaction can be improved by focusing on the ethical dimension of the conversation between user and librarian. The aim is to provide a better understanding of the ethical implications of the reference interview.

The starting point is the ethical questions raised by the results of Gunhild Salvesen's PhD thesis, where she analyses authentic reference interviews by the method Conversation Analysis (CA). She found several traits in the conversations between librarian and user with a negative influence on the quality of the transactions. To visualise the ethical implications of the same conversation, Løgstrup's ethics of proximity are used.

Analysing the conversations from an ethical perspective revealed that increased ethical consciousness among the librarians clearly would have improved the quality of the actual transactions. It is concluded that the total quality of reference transactions will increase by focusing on the ethical dimension.

Using data from a researcher to validate the same data in another context might not be considered appropriate. However, using the transcripts from Salvesen's dissertation would serve the purpose of revealing the ethical implications of the interviews and their influence on the quality.

This work might contribute to increasing the ethical consciousness among reference librarians, and encourage them to improve their communication skills, to raise the quality of the interaction.

This way of using ethical theories in the analysis of authentic conversations between user and librarian is new. Likewise, using CA on reference interviews in a library setting is also new.

In the autumn of 2006, two groups of students from the Faculty of Journalism, Library and Information Science at Oslo University College participated in a cooperative project with the Norwegian online reference service, Biblioteksvar.no (Ask The Library (ATL)). The students were in their third term of studies and received instruction in retrieval systems and tools. The main purpose of this paper is to evaluate the performance of the students in actual reference work. It seeks to examine a sample of questions and answers. In a wider perspective, the study highlights the value of this kind of educational strategy.

The evaluation criteria in this study are based on a qualitative analysis of actual questions and answers from the ATL, student summaries of their own work on the project and interviews with professional librarians working with the ATL service. A substantial amount of data has been collected during the project period.

Analysis shows that the students generally performed very well. This corroborates the findings from a similar project last year. The students' answers had the same level of quality as the responses supplied by professional, experienced librarians working on the ATL service. Possible reasons for this result are discussed. The study confirms the importance of the reference interview for increasing the quality of the responses.

The results of the study indicate that the ATL service should not only provide links to information sources in response to user questions, but should also include a short explanation of how the links are found. Further, patron satisfaction surveys are useful. The collection of contextual data about the question and the patron may improve the quality of the response from the service. It is recommended that the SMS‐based service be included in the student project next year so that the students will have the opportunity to participate in all three of the currently available ATL services from Biblioteksvar.no.

The paper may inspire other faculties and schools of information studies to cooperate more closely with the library profession and to prepare students for their future careers as reference librarians through participation in actual reference work from a relatively early stage in the program of study. The project described in this paper illustrates the change from traditional lecture‐based teaching to problem‐based learning in projects as outlined in The Quality Reform in Norwegian Higher Education.