Know It All, Find It Fast for Academic Libraries

Picture, if you will, the following scenario. It is after seven in the evening and you are providing cover for the enquiry desk of a large academic library. So far, most of your enquiries have been “where can I do some photocopying?” or “I can't seem to find Rang and Dale's Pharmacy book on the catalogue, will you help me?”, sprinkled with the odd “where are the toilets?”. Fairly run of the mill stuff […]

Then an academic on a very tight schedule approaches the desk and asks you “Where can I get information on the education system of Zambia? I'm in a bind and need it tonight!” This is your moment […]. Do you:

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  Stare at them like a rabbit caught in the headlights and mutter something about the subject librarian not being available and could they come back tomorrow, thank you very much (customer service is everything!)?

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  Google it?

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  Grab a copy of Know It All, Find It Fast for Academic Libraries by Heather Dawson off your reference shelves and try to assist the academic with their query?

The book is very helpfully alphabetised by subject/topic, such as banking, education, languages, parliamentary proceedings, etc. Within each subject there is a further split into three sections: typical questions, points to consider and where to look. Within the where to look section the information is broken down again into: key organisations; libraries and archives; dictionaries and encyclopaedias; news services; journal article indexing services; and internet gateways and portals. This may seem like a lot of subsections but not every one of them is heavily populated, so it keeps the where to look sections concise and readable.

That is the main thing that I found appealing about the book. It is not cluttered with too much information; every section is clear and to the point. It tells you where you might start looking for answers and gives a little snippet of information about each source, letting you gauge within a couple of sentences whether or not that source was likely to be helpful to you. Also the points to consider section hold really useful tips. Under the trade union section, for example, there is a tip about remembering alternative spellings (such as labour and labor) and synonyms (such as trade unions, labor unions, strikes or industrial action). Now, I know any information professional worth their salt should remember things like this, but when you are caught out with a tricky enquiry, you might be thrown off course and forget these simple things.

Overall, I think this book is marvellous and it will definitely have a place on my bookshelf. This book is not going to give you the definitive answer to the “education system of Zambia” query, but it does provide signposts for your way toward the answers and will tell you where to start your search. Ultimately, if you are looking for an information source to give you a starting point on your reference journey, which is packed full of useful tips, then this is the book for you.