Goal 2: Understand the essential nature of information and its relevance to our diverse society.
The main way in which humans take in information is experiencing it! At least, I do. To truly understand how essential information is, the best course of action for my learning style is to see how information has improved life, in action. For LIS 702, one of our main assignments was to facilitate a service in a library and report on it. In my scenario, I asked an unusual reference question to my local librarian. Through this experience, I learned essential information about how to handle interesting reference questions respectfully and professionally, by watching a great example in action. Thus, it was cemented how essential information is when serving diverse societies who ask unexpected and diverse questions of you. Please see my observational response to the assignment below.
I was sitting at my home library the other day, happily typing away on my laptop, when I concocted a sort of…testy idea. I decided that, for this assignment, I was going to ask for something a bit outlandish of the reference librarian. So I waddled on up to the big, wooden desk and greeted her with a smile before asking for a genre of book that many find questionable (but my sister loves) a “whychoose” romance book. “Whychoose” romance books are tales where the main character gets with not one, not two, not three–well, maybe three–but definitely more than one love interest at the end. These books are definitely niche, so I decided they were the perfect material to ask about.
I first started this semi-embarrassing ordeal by channeling some of Becky Spratfords article, Ten Rules of Basic RA Service [Updated April 2023]. Her first bullet point gets to the core of my review today, “Never apologize for your reading tastes.” I walked up to the librarian fully expecting a judgment-free zone, where I wouldn’t have to feel embarrassed about asking for a certain type of genre–as, theoretically, that is how RA is supposed to be. Based on this core feature, and many other characteristics of a good reference interaction, I will identify the coming service interaction as “good.”
To give credit to this very nice librarian, she didn’t even blink when I first inquired about these books. Instead, she initiated a conversation that felt like a wonderfully practiced, natural reference interview. She withheld judgment and upheld a key piece of ethics surrounding RA as described by Catherine Sheldrick Ross in Laurel Tarulli and Neal Wyatt’s piece, Listening to Advisors: A Conversation About Readers’ Advisory Services, Practice, and Practicing. Ross states that, “The goal of readers’ advisory work is not to improve reading taste or to get more people reading the classics or to push people up the reading ladder. The purpose is to help connect readers with the materials that they will engage with and enjoy,” (3). I did not feel an ounce of judgment from her.
We continued on to the search. In a nicely educational manner, she explained to me various sources I could access that could help me find books I may like. She explained Goodreads to me, showed me a couple of blog sites, and even mentioned a resource I love using—FANTASTICFICTION (FF). From there she asked additional questions such as, do you like sci-fi, fantasy, time-travel, historical fiction, etc. until we landed on, frankly, all of the above. I felt bad about giving such broad parameters, but she was not deterred. In fact, she utilized number eight of Ten Rules of Basic RA Service [Updated April 2023], “Working together is your MOST valuable resource.” She excused herself for a moment and walked over to a coworker, who she explained she knew liked romance books, and asked her if she knew of any pieces that would fit my criteria. Her fellow librarian actually became excited and walked over to chat, and the three of us started to discuss possible series options. The first librarian wrote the suggestions on a piece of paper alongside resources such as Goodreads and FF, and the interaction in whole was kind, informative, and successful. The library did not, however, have any of these items on its shelves, nor the ability to do an ILL. I understand–frankly it is a brand-new genre that exists mainly online, however, the majority of them can be found in eBook form as well as audiobook. In this sense, they failed a bit with Ranganathans, The Five Laws of Library Science, specifically number two, as they had no materials in a new and up-coming genre that parts of the community would be interested in. Overall, it was a very good service interaction.
Works Cited
DeBiasio, Benjamin. “Readers Advisory.” Facilitation User Learning and Information Needs, 22 March 2024, Dominican University, River Forest.
Tarulli, Laurel, and Neal Wyatt. “Listening to Advisors, A Conversation About Readers’ Advisory Services, Practice, and Practicing.” Reference & User Services Quarterly, vol. 60, no. 2, Winter 2020, pp. 107–14.
“Ten Rules of Basic RA Service.” Ten Rules of Basic RA Service, Updated April 2023, n.d., raforall.blogspot.com/p/beckys-ten-rules-of-basic-ra-service.html.
2025 ePortfolio 