57tenthe reference Interview
Conducting a reference interview is the most
important work a reference librarian does, because
this enables the librarian to match the patron’s
question to a relevant and useful source.
—Stephanie Willen Brown, “The Reference Interview”w
hat is the reference interview? It is the process by which a reference
librarian, through a series of questions, determines exactly what the
patron is looking for. Why would you need to “interview” a library patron?
Don’t you simply listen to the question and then answer it? Seasoned refer-
ence librarians will tell you that library patrons will often “hide” their actual
questions; for example, they ask “where are the history books” when what
they really want to know is the date of the Battle of Bull Run. Many people,
particularly adults, are afraid or ashamed to admit that they don’t know some-
thing, and so will ask a very general question (where are the history books?)
when what they need to know is a specific fact (the date of the Battle of Bull
Run). The reference interview, then, is a process of communication, and a
singular one at that: one person (the patron) is attempting to tell another (the
librarian) what they don’t know.
The ALA Glossary of Library and Information Science defines the reference
interview as “the interpersonal communication between a reference staff