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Overview
A daily diary of actual interactions between a reference desk librarian and his patrons
Reference Librarianship documents a year in the life of a young librarian working in the “trenches” at a library in the Midwestern United States. This one-of-a-kind book provides a daily diary of every librarian/patron transaction—no matter how mundane or absurd—to demonstrate not only how advances in technology have affected the reference librarian’s job, but how the public’s expectations have changed, as well. The book also includes observations by a now-retired reference librarian on the current state of the field based on these unedited interactions.
Over the past two decades, the job of reference librarian has seen many changes. But in many ways, reference desk work hasn’t changed a bit, with its mix of odd, humorous, routine, and ridiculous requests that capture what it’s like to deal with patrons day after day. Reference Librarianship paints a clear picture of the field for library school students, provides emotional and philosophical support to practitioners, and reminds library administrators of what life was like on the “front lines.”
A sampling of the daily transactions documented in Reference Librarianship:
Monday, May 19, 2003:
- pencil
- pencil
- network down
- I tell people that I can’t sign them up for an Internet terminal because the network is down and they just stand there, staring into space
- One of them asks for three days worth of newspapers
- microfiche machine explanation
- Sorry, Sir, the network is still down (multiply by twenty and insert randomly into the remainder of the day)
- magic tricks, but he pretty much knew where they were
- One of our large interior plate glass windows shattered. No one was hurt and it made a fascinating noise, like a crystal waterfall landing on soil.
- “Books on prostitution, you know—whores?”
- Someone from the County called to ask if any criminal activity had occurred on a particular street. Someone else referred her to us. She was dubious—with good reason.
- “Math puzzles.” Okay. I show him the books.
- “Just math.” Certainly. I show him the books.
- “I need them in Spanish.” Grrr ...
Synopsis
A daily diary of actual interactions between a reference desk librarian and his patrons
Reference Librarianship documents a year in the life of a young librarian working in the “trenches” at a library in the Midwestern United States. This one-of-a-kind book provides a daily diary of every librarian/patron transaction—no matter how mundane or absurd—to demonstrate not only how advances in technology have affected the reference librarian’s job, but how the public’s expectations have changed, as well. The book also includes observations by a now-retired reference librarian on the current state of the field based on these unedited interactions.
Over the past two decades, the job of reference librarian has seen many changes. But in many ways, reference desk work hasn’t changed a bit, with its mix of odd, humorous, routine, and ridiculous requests that capture what it’s like to deal with patrons day after day. Reference Librarianship paints a clear picture of the field for library school students, provides emotional and philosophical support to practitioners, and reminds library administrators of what life was like on the “front lines.”
A sampling of the daily transactions documented in Reference Librarianship:
Monday, May 19, 2003:
- pencil
- pencil
- network down
- I tell people that I can’t sign them up for an Internet terminal because the network is down and they just stand there, staring into space
- One of them asks for three days worth of newspapers
- microfiche machine explanation
- Sorry, Sir, the network is still down (multiply by twenty and insert randomly into the remainder of the day)
- magic tricks, but he pretty much knew where they were
- One of our large interior plate glass windows shattered. No one was hurt and it made a fascinating noise, like a crystal waterfall landing on soil.
- “Books on prostitution, you know—whores?”
- Someone from the County called to ask if any criminal activity had occurred on a particular street. Someone else referred her to us. She was dubious—with good reason.
- “Math puzzles.” Okay. I show him the books.
- “Just math.” Certainly. I show him the books.
- “I need them in Spanish.” Grrr ...
Doody Review Services
Reviewer:Valerie C Sweeney, BFA, MLS(Duquesne University)
Description:Each chapter in this book begins with a two-page essay by Charles Anderson touching on an issue he sees as relevant to the reference librarian today. Each chapter finishes with a record of Peter Sprenkle's time on a reference desk in a public library, originally recorded for publication as posts on Sprenkle's blog, RefGrunt.
Purpose:The authors state their purpose as "paint[ing] a clear picture of the field," "provid[ing]...support for" librarians, and reminding administrators what life is like for their reference librarians. The essays purportedly address contemporary issues in reference librarianship, but the book covers no new ground and in fact rehashes a lot of unnecessary old ground: should the library also function as a coffee shop/Internet caf?/bookstore; the everything-is-free-on-the-Internet patron assertion.
Audience:It is written for reference librarians or, at least, it's written in a way that leads me to believe that the authors think reference librarians read this sort of book for fun.
Features:The book would have been better left as a blog and the journal articles which it appears it started out as. The book was published in 2006, but the blog entries date from 2003 and feel dated. I realize not every public library was on the leading frontier of technology and so perhaps they are working out a lot of the kinks, but how many Internet sign-ups and server crashes can you make fun of before it gets wearisome? This is the primary problem with the book -- the original blog made for fun reading when you had a few minutes of downtime. It's always nice to know you are not the only librarian answering endless bathroom and printer questions. But chapter after chapter of it, in a supposedly professional book, gets boring quickly. The book makes for fine pick-up/put-down reading, as long as you are not expecting anything that can be used to better your reference librarian skills, or help solve some of the issues of the day.
Assessment:This is a forgettable book. It's written well enough and, as I said, the blog entries can be amusing in little bits. But I wouldn't recommend adding it to a collection for any sort of professional development purposes.
Editorials
Reviewer: Valerie C Sweeney, BFA, MLS(Duquesne University)
Description: Each chapter in this book begins with a two-page essay by Charles Anderson touching on an issue he sees as relevant to the reference librarian today. Each chapter finishes with a record of Peter Sprenkle's time on a reference desk in a public library, originally recorded for publication as posts on Sprenkle's blog, RefGrunt.
Purpose: The authors state their purpose as "paint[ing] a clear picture of the field," "provid[ing]...support for" librarians, and reminding administrators what life is like for their reference librarians. The essays purportedly address contemporary issues in reference librarianship, but the book covers no new ground and in fact rehashes a lot of unnecessary old ground: should the library also function as a coffee shop/Internet café/bookstore; the everything-is-free-on-the-Internet patron assertion.
Audience: It is written for reference librarians or, at least, it's written in a way that leads me to believe that the authors think reference librarians read this sort of book for fun.
Features: The book would have been better left as a blog and the journal articles which it appears it started out as. The book was published in 2006, but the blog entries date from 2003 and feel dated. I realize not every public library was on the leading frontier of technology and so perhaps they are working out a lot of the kinks, but how many Internet sign-ups and server crashes can you make fun of before it gets wearisome? This is the primary problem with the book — the original blog made for fun reading when you had a few minutes of downtime. It's always nice to know you are not the only librarian answering endless bathroom and printer questions. But chapter after chapter of it, in a supposedly professional book, gets boring quickly. The book makes for fine pick-up/put-down reading, as long as you are not expecting anything that can be used to better your reference librarian skills, or help solve some of the issues of the day.
Assessment: This is a forgettable book. It's written well enough and, as I said, the blog entries can be amusing in little bits. But I wouldn't recommend adding it to a collection for any sort of professional development purposes.