The Step Approach to Reference Service

Abstract

With release of Katherine Emer son's excellent summary of National Re porting on Transactions, 1976 78,1 at last we have a standard for gathering of uniform reference statistics. Henceforth, on our Library General In formation Survey (LIBGIS) forms, we will be reporting reference contacts as either Directional Transactions or Reference Transactions and, as Emerson points out, this pair of categorizations probably represents maximum number of choices that can be made easily and quickly. We also take note, however, of Emer son's caveats that this new reporting mode is not the ultimate model for statistics of reference services,2 and that it is in tended to enable us to conceptualize ref erence work so that we can get infor mation needed for making correct deci sions about resources and their use for provision of services.3 It is precisely for these reasons that we wish to suggest merits of a different model, which we call step approach to categorization of reference questions. By eliminating distinction between and true reference questions and by looking at all reference desk transactions simply in terms of number of steps they require for resolution, our model enables us to conceptualize reference work in ways that supplement LIBGIS model and en hance its theoretical value. As long ago as 1942, Elizabeth Opal Stone dismissed as inadequate all cur rently used methods of measuring refer ence service.4 Thirty-five years later, we still have no valid measures of reference effectiveness and no rational way of jus tifying reference desk staffing. Neverthe less, profession has increasingly in sisted upon formal educational qualifica tions beyond baccalaureate degree and upon professional consideration for all questions, question negotiation being con sidered strictly a professional prerogative. There is evidence to suggest, however, that, as Edward Jestes has noted, most reference questions can be satisfactorily handled by trained nonprofessionals.5 Moreover, professional coverage of all questions received at a reference desk is debilitating from several standpoints. It reduces amount of time and quality of response associated with true refer ence questions, even as it militates against strong client relationships. Insofar as li brarianship hopes some day to become a real profession rather than a semiprofes sion or a skilled trade, it must concen trate, among other things, upon strengthening relationship between li brarians and their clients.6 Whether this strengthening be seen in Rothstein's terms as a liberalizing of reference services7 or as an emphasis upon research rather than upon directional types of re sponses, need to develop a greater mentor connotation8 based upon recog nized expertise becomes crucial to growth of librarianship as a scholarly dis cipline. Nor is importance of effective, client-oriented question negotiation limited to its professional significance. The impli

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