56 REFERENCE SERVICES
service: showing readers how to use the library, answering their questions,
helping them select books, and promoting the library in the community. The
ALA Glossary of Library and Information Science considers reference service to
be synonymous with information service, and defines the latter as “information
or research assistance provided to library users by library staff.”^2
In the following chapters I will discuss reference techniques and processes,
some of the different types of reference services, and reference policies, stan-
dards, and evaluation.notes- Samuel S. Green, “Personal Relations between Librarians and Readers,”
Library Journal 1, nos. 2–3 (November 30, 1876): 74. - Michael Levine-Clark and Toni M. Carter, eds., ALA Glossary of Library and
Information Science, 4th ed. (Chicago: American Library Association, 2012),
s.v. “reference services,” “information services.”
In 1876, in one of the earliest articles in library literature to discuss what we now
call reference service, Samuel S. Green lays out its four fundamental principles.
More than a century later, in 1997, Tyckoson considers contemporary reference
service and finds that Green’s four founding principles are still relevant today.
Green, “Personal Relations between Librarians and Readers,” Library Journal 1,
nos. 2–3 (November 30, 1876): 74–81. Tyckoson, “What We Do: Reaffirming the
Founding Principles of Reference Services.” Reference Librarian 59 (1997): 3–13.Two excellent LIS textbooks have been recently updated, and both provide
numerous suggestions for further reading: Richard E. Bopp and Linda C. Smith,
eds., Reference and Information Services: An Introduction, 4th edition (Santa
Barbara, CA: Libraries Unlimited, 2011); and Kay Ann Cassell and Uma Hiremath,
Reference and Information Services in the 21st Century: An Introduction, 2nd
revised edition (New York: Neal-Schuman, 2011).http://www.ebook3000.com