Technological Advances in Reference: A Paradigm Shift?

Citation

Freeman, M. (2002), "Technological Advances in Reference: A Paradigm Shift?", New Library World, Vol. 103 No. 9, pp. 354-355. https://doi.org/10.1108/nlw.2002.103.9.354.4

Another substantial work from the Graduate School of Library and Information Science of the University of Illinois. The issue this time covers the burgeoning areas of societal and technological change and their impact upon professional reference work. The arrival on the library scene of computers and the Internet has made great and significant changes to the way librarians work, none more so than in the reference function. In Kuhnian terms a paradigm shift appears to be operating throughout the profession. In this collection of papers Gorman presents an interesting account of the human‐to‐human reference function, covering such areas as the democratic value of libraries, professional ethics regarding privacy issues, the equality of access to information and intellectual freedom – all presented thoughtfully and with good exemplars. Gorman reminds us of the continuing value of newspapers and journals in good reference work; in the rush for glitzy, trendy use of the Internet the enduring corpus of knowledge in print form tends to get sidelined. He also remarks sagely on the wisdom of librarians reading widely and voraciously. Dilevko’s interesting paper on digital reference services brings forth the spectre of the deprofessionalisation of reference library work – the “call centre” in its pressurised ubiquity is killing off good humanised professional reference library work. He mentions, in passing, Amazon.com’s infamous memo: “You can sleep when you’re dead”. Is this really the model we want to aspire to?

All in all, a well presented if rather dense and specialised work but, nevertheless, a useful pertinent addition to the ever growing literature on computers, the Internet and libraries, being of particular interest to all those practitioners involved in the reference role in libraries and information units.