Fundamentals of Reference

Reference Evaluation 107

sources it’s time to subtract. Cassell and Hiremath offer these criteria for weed-
ing or “deselecting” reference materials:

•   The content is no longer up-to-date or accurate.

•   A new edition is available.

•   The reference work is seldom used.

•   The information is duplicated in another reference work.

•   The book is worn out.^10

They note that some subject areas require more frequent weeding than others.
Generally speaking, there is less need for weeding reference sources covering
the humanities than for those covering the sciences.

reference staff

Reference services staff may be regularly evaluated as library employees by
means of performance evaluations administered by the managers or supervi-
sors in their particular institution. This section is not concerned with that
kind of evaluation; rather, it discusses personal evaluation, or self-evaluation
of the reference staff.
As reference librarians we should keep informed about current events and
our own library’s collections and services (and those of nearby institutions); we
also need to monitor our own reference practice. By reference practice I mean
all that we do as reference librarians: answer reference questions, help patrons
formulate a search, build and maintain ref-
erence collections, interact with patrons and
coworkers, and so on. We must make an
effort to keep our reference skills sharp, our
attitude positive, and our enthusiasm high.
Keeping our reference skills sharp may
be the easiest of these to accomplish since
continuing education opportunities are
plentiful, from in-house training to web-
based instruction and webinars to local
workshops and professional conferences.
If we find, upon reflection, that there is a particular type of reference situa-
tion we have difficulty with or a subject with which we are not as familiar as

Sandra Naiman, “The

Unexamined Interview Is Not

Worth Having,” Reference

Librarian 6, no. 19 (1987): 31–46.

This article is a thoughtful look

at the reference interview and

the skills and characteristics that

make good reference librarians.