100 REFERENCE SERVICES
Personal standards
As the guidelines above have stated so succinctly, “knowledge must be con-
tinuously updated.” Personal experience bears this out: if I had stopped learn-
ing upon the completion of my professional degree, I would be ill-equipped to
handle much of what I encounter in a typical reference workday. Among the
many strategies for keeping current suggested by the guidelines, some of my
favorite ones are regular attendance at local and national library conferences;
listening, reading, and viewing a variety of media; and active participation in
professional organizations.
In addition to a commitment to lifelong learning, a reference librarian
should also aspire to a personal standard of excellence. Certainly some days
at the reference desk will be more challenging than others, but, it is hoped,
“good” days will outnumber the “bad” ones.
Whatever the day may bring, a genuine
commitment to both serve and stay engaged
in the field will go a long way.
One way to stay engaged is to attend
conferences where interactions with col-
leagues and presentations by innovators
and leaders can energize as well as inform.
At the 2008 ALA Annual Conference in
Anaheim, the RUSA Presidents Program,
“Quality Service in an Impersonal World,” offered much in the way of inspi-
ration. One of the most dynamic presenters was Marie L. Radford of Rutgers
University, whose research interests include the interpersonal communication
aspects of reference, nonverbal communication, and the evaluation of virtual
reference. The Winter 2008 (vol. 48, no. 2, pp. 110–15) issue of Reference
and User Services Quarterly includes an editorial she was asked to write, based,
in part, on that presentation. Entitled “A Personal Choice: Reference Service
Excellence,” it contains these insightful and encouraging words: “Excellent
service frequently comes to the personal choices we make to learn, to embrace
change, to push into uncharted cyber-territory, to choose to find positive
approaches to even the most problematic people.”^1note- Marie L. Radford, “A Personal Choice: Reference Service Excellence,”
Reference and User Services Quarterly 48, no. 2 (2008): 115.
Diane Zabel, ed., Reference
Reborn: Breathing New Life into
Public Services Librarianship
(Santa Barbara, CA: Libraries
Unlimited, 2011), is a collection
of thirty-three essays that
address the challenges faced by
today’s reference practitioners.http://www.ebook3000.com