Fundamentals of Reference

60 REFERENCE SERVICES

be made if the original question was not, in the patron’s opinion, answered

completely. These “other sources” may be other reference tools, another

department in the library, or other libraries or institutions that may provide

additional information or assistance.

Catherine Sheldrick Ross writes that

a good reference interview is a collaboration. User and librarian are

equal partners in the search, with different areas of expertise. The

user is the expert in the question itself and knows how the question

arose, what necessary information is missing in her understanding

of the topic, and how the information will be used. The staff mem-

ber is the expert on the library system and the organization and

retrieval of information. Both need to work together.^3

notes

1. 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 interview.”


2. Joan M. Reitz, Dictionary for Library and Information Science (Westport, CT:
   Libraries Unlimited, 2004), 601.


3. Catherine Sheldrick Ross, “The Reference Interview: Why It Needs to Be
   Used in Every (Well, Almost Every) Reference Transaction,” Reference and
   User Services Quarterly 43, no. 1 (2003): 38.

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