I was able to spend a substantial amount of time this summer working on the reference desk.  Since North East is a branch library, all of the librarians take it in turns to staff the desk and help patrons of all ages.  While we spent a lot of time dealing with the summer reading program signups and completions (we had well over 1700 signups by the time I finished my DFW, and had already exceeded our reading goal by early August), we also fielded a large number of reference questions.

There were three instances in particular that I feel exemplified my reference experiences, one excellent, one okay, and one poor.

• My instance of poor reference services came during my shift at Lake City Branch Library.  My supervisor had been assigned there for the evening and asked me to accompany her to get a sense of what a different branch is like and how the community served can be radically different from a shift of only a few blocks.  Indeed, the population served by Lake City is substantially different from that at North East; North East serves large number of families with young children and generally comes from a more affluent social class, while Lake City (from what I saw) has a larger minority population and more patrons from a less privileged socioeconomic class.  A patron came up with a book that he had retrieved from his hold shelf, but he no longer wanted it and wanted to make sure it was shelved properly.  He kept apologizing for bothering us, although both my supervisor and I tried to reassure him that this was our job, we were happy to help, and it wasn’t a bother at all.

  He then asked if we had a particular book on Hollywood stars or Hollywood legends.  He described it as a big coffee-table book, was pretty sure that the title was “Hollywood Legends”, and said that he had seen it here.  Searching by that title didn’t turn anything up; trying a variety of subject headings and searches around “Hollywood,” “Hollywood legends,” “film stars,” “film icons,” etc. didn’t turn anything up.  My supervisor was helping me search the catalog but she came up against the same limitations I did – plenty of books about that subject, but no way to tell if any particular one was the one he wanted.  Googling turned up way too many things, none of which were useful.  He mentioned that he had also seen it at Barnes and Nobles “and should have just bought it while he was there”, so I tried searching the Barnes and Nobles website to see if I could find it, but again struck out.  I also tried the Borders website, as it’s my experience that people often don’t differentiate between the two, but found nothing.  I took him back to the 790s to see if we could find it by browsing, but none of the books on  the shelf were what he wanted; we also checked the Oversize collection.  One of the oversize books was a Vogue book of film stars, but he said that it wasn’t the one he was looking for.  Since he was looking for a very specific book, it wasn’t appropriate to put any of the other books that shared the “motion picture actors and actresses” subject headings on hold for him, and so in the end I apologized for not being able to find it and suggested that it might be checked out and he could try back later.

  I felt like this was a very frustrating experience for both of us.  Since he was looking for a specific book without knowing the exact title or author, it was difficult for me to locate it; he wasn’t interested in any other book that covered the same topic, so putting books on hold or finding an appropriate substitute wasn’t a great option.  It was also a difficult interaction for me since he was very apologetic about bothering me, and I wanted very much for him to feel welcome at the library, but simply wasn’t able to find what he was looking for; I didn’t want him to feel like the library didn’t want him there or we weren’t happy to see him or help him, but I just wasn’t able to deliver.  I believe that I maintained a welcoming and professional demeanor throughout the interaction, but I would have felt much better if I’d been able to find his book for him.

• I had a more successful, but still not spectacular, reference experience with another patron at North East.  A woman in upper middle age came up and asked if “this was where she got her questions answered.”  I assured her that it was certainly where we tried to answer questions, and she sat down and explained that she was looking for unbiased, government (state or federal) funded information on planning for retirement and old age.  She said that she’d checked out the AARP’s website and they had several resources, but that most of them referred you to banks or brokerage houses or the like and she didn’t want to get information from organizations that had an obvious vested interest in your ultimate financial planning decisions.  I asked if she was planning for herself or for a parent or relative, to get a sense  of whether this was an urgent need for funding sources or a more long-term goal, and she answered that it was for her own needs in the (relatively distant) future.  I also asked if she was interested in, for example, a website, a phone hotline, an in-person workshop or consultation, or some other method.  She mentioned specifically that she’d prefer a face-to-face workshop or consultation, but was more interested in the non-commercial aspect than the format.

  I briefly checked the AARP website but she was quite correct that most of the links were to commerical entities, since AARP tends to partner with other businesses to provide services.  I knew from my job in eldercare prior to entering library school that most communities have local Area Agencies on Aging, which are nonprofit resources for seniors and adults caring for them, and so this might be a good place for her to contact to see what types of workshops or other information might be available.  I was able to locate the website for the Seattle Agency on Aging and provided her with the site address and contact phone number.  I also checked the Medicare website to see if it provided any additional information on financial planning, but was unable to locate any.

  She mentioned that she had checked the UW extension course catalog to see if they offered any classes, but that they didn’t.  When I asked if she had checked the community colleges around Seattle, she said that she hadn’t but that it sounded like those might be great resources.  I wrote down a pointer for her to check community college catalogs, but I feel now like I would have provided better service to have given her a list of them and possibly checked their catalogs (time permitting) for appropriate courses—I’m not really sure why I stopped my services there, but especially given the lack of a line I could have done more.

  I also asked my supervisor if she had any thoughts and she brought the patron back to our large-print section, which is where we keep our resources on aging, including the AARP magazine.  However, these were geared more towards people making immediate decisions about health care and aging care, and were also heavily commercially sponsored.  These were not good resources for this patron.

  I finished with a recommendation that she contact the agency on aging to see what resources they could offer, and that she check the community college catalogs for classes or seminars.  Again, I feel like it would have been more appropriate to provide her with at least a list of colleges to try, but this was at least a starting point for her.

  After she left, I also realized that I could have checked Consumer Reports for other resources and information – while they wouldn’t sponsor face-to-face classes, they frequently publish articles on smart money management and retirement strategies.  They do indeed have several articles linked from their website on retirement planning, pension planning, and other financial considerations.  This would have been a great resource for this patron, and I wish that I had thought of it earlier.  As it is, I will have to keep Consumer Reports in mind for other patrons with similar information needs.

• The last reference encounter I wish to discuss came from an elderly woman who said that she was writing her memoirs and wanted to learn about “holographic” writing.  She said that The Atlantic Monthly always had one section in each issue devoted to holographic writing and that she wanted to learn how to write in this style.  Despite having some experience with creative  writing  (I was nearly an English minor in college), I had never heard of this term for a writing style.  When I asked her to explain what this term meant, she said that it was a way of writing in which you provide the full picture of everything that a character is experiencing at that point in time, from their thoughts to the types of food that they’re eating, to the weather, to their personal relationships, to the politial and economic events that are affecting them – basically giving a fish-eye view of everything that’s affecting this individual at this point in time.  She was specifically interested in this in the context of memoirs, and even more specifically about writing for an audio book.

  When I took a creative non-fiction writing class in college, our two textbooks were Writing Down the Bones and Bird By Bird.  I’ve since heard these two books referenced as the virtual bibles of writing memoir or creative nonfiction, and so I thought I would get them for her…with the slight  complication that I couldn’t remember the title of Writing Down the Bones.  Amazon came to my rescue; I looked up Bird by Bird and the first or second link of “related products” was Writing Down the Bones, so I was able to put them both on hold for her.  However, she really wanted something to take home that day, so I wrote down their call numbers and went to see what else we had on the shelves in that range.  I was able to find a book on writing by Ray Bradbury (who I’ve always considered to be very gifted at creating a strong sense of time and place), another by Norman Mailer (who I admit I have never read anything by, but he’s won Pulitzers so I assume he knows what he’s going on about), and a third, more generic, volume on writing narrative nonfiction.  She flipped through all of these, declared them to be exactly what she was looking for, and went away happy.

  My experience here was a bit lucky, to be honest.  I had enough background in writing to know a good book to start from and be able to work from there to locate other similar works  that might serve her needs.

In general, it’s been the questions where I had some (or a lot) of existing background knowledge where I was most able to easily locate materials and resources for the patron.  It’s when they’re asking about a field that I’m wholly unfamiliar with (Hollywood stars being a good example) that I have trouble figuring out where to start.  I’m sure that a lot of these skills will simply develop with experience and time as I am asked a wider range of questions, but I’m very frequently made aware of the gaping holes in my knowledge.

Additionally, I need to work on improving my basic search strategies; I often forget to try subject-browse searches, which will frequently redirect you to the correct subject heading even if you’re using the wrong term initially, and I need more work on combining terms to find the right resource.  I’ll be taking LIS 521 next quarter, which is the more advanced reference services class, and I’m looking forward to gaining more search strategies as a result of the coursework.  Answering reference questions was one of my favorite parts of this summer—I like the combination of detective work, interpersonal skills, and ingenuity in finding my patrons the best resources I can.