Negative closure : Strategies and counter-strategies in the reference transaction

Abstract

In this paper, we analyse accounts of the experiences of one hundred M.L.I.S. students who visited a library of their choice and asked a question mattered to them personnaly. The focus of analysis is on the ways in which the reference transaction was brought to an end, apart from providing the user with an acceptable answer. We argue that the commonly observed problems of bypassing the reference interview, failure to ask a followup question, and unmonitored referrals occur when the primary goal of the library staff member is to satisfy system demands by moving on to the next question. Analysis focuses on ten strategies of negative closure that library staff use to end the reference transaction and eleven counter-strategies that users employ to prevent the reference transaction from being terminated before an acceptable answer is found.

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