Updating Library Reference Services through Training for Interpersonal Competence.

Abstract

During the past decade or so, major changes have occurred in American soci ety that have had important consequences for library reference service. The changes are the result of a shift of consciousness and social power in elements of the popu lation previously either nonparticipative or otherwise invisible in our society. Tra ditions of interpersonal encounter estab lished in an earlier cultural milieu are no longer always effective, and necessary ad justments in the dynamics of the professional-client encounter are being made in most of the helping professions. The library profession, however, has been slow to recognize this need, perhaps be cause it views itself as less directly con cerned with its clients as emotional beings than are the professions of medicine, psychotherapy, counseling, and teaching. Thus, methods of reference service and professional attitudes developed over the years to satisfy an intellectual elite now fail to serve the needs of a user popu lation that includes a greater cross-section of an increasingly better educated general population. A reference situation entirely satisfactory to a Henry James might be in tolerable to an educated product of an urban ghetto, not to speak of persons from the numerous and diverse ethnic and reli

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