Second to last week,,,,

For the last two weeks, I have been chugging away at the comparative paper on reference services between Penrose and Waltz. However, I really only hit my stride this week, especially becuse of some articles on the research habits of musicians that I missed the first time out on my searches of LIS databases. The paper really focuses on the impact of the community each serves on the delivery of reference services, especially the reference interview. To me, part of why the setting of the library is so important is because it answers a lot of the taboo question "why do you need this information?"

The reference interview (of which I am a certified practioner of the Effective Reference Performance program at Jefferson County) is an extremely useful tool, but a large part of its' focus is on finding a thing. Also, they tend to emphasize the librarian's knowledge over the patron's/student's/whomever's. A lot of the "alternative" therories of reference do have somewhat of a touchy-feelyness about them, but I appreciate their attemps to make the reference interview more of a "meeting of the minds." Another part of what draws my interest is the fact that they get away from the flowcharting of human behavior and decision-making, and focus more on broader theories that can be applied more liberally, and run into fewer exceptions.

There is something Aristotalian about using flowcharts to describe the way that people seek information, with branches coming off of branches as new information is processed, as the search moves forward. Instead, some of the alternative theories of reference help guide the librarian in understanding the user without trying to impose a specific model on them.