EXPERTS ROSS, NILSEN AND RADFORD REVEAL BEST VIRTUAL AND TRADITIONAL REFERENCE INTERVIEW STRATEGIES
June 5th, 2009New York, NY (June 10, 2009) – Effective reference transactions depend on a librarian’s keen ability to understand exactly what the user wants to know. Conducting the Reference Interview: A How-To-Do-It Manual for Librarians, Second Edition, to be published by Neal-Schuman on August 5, 2009, translates two decades of authoritative research into highly practical guidelines, strategies, and exercises for providing users with accurate information. Expert authors Catherine Sheldrick Ross, Kirsti Nilsen, and Marie L. Radford pool their wealth of professional and educational experience to offer both practicing librarians and LIS students a comprehensive guide to conducting successful reference interviews across any virtual, traditional, or face-to-face model of communication.
Logically organized into eight chapters, Conducting the Reference Interview is equally effective when read from cover to cover or when used as a guide to specific reference applications and settings. The book begins with an introduction to the reference interview, and provides important definitions, key communications models, tips for overcoming the “55% rule,” and fundamental theories that are essential to a successful reference transaction. Using Allen Ivey’s highly regarded microtraining approach to communication behaviors as a framework, Ross, Nilsen, and Radford cover the critical skills needed to establish positive communication during the initial seconds of librarian-user contact, including verbal, non-verbal, and listening skills. The authors then present common problems observed in reference interviews, and guide readers to avoid these pitfalls through a mastery of the major skills needed for the reference interview, including asking open and sense-making questions, avoiding premature diagnosis, paraphrasing, summarizing, and achieving closure. Additional stages of the interview are examined next, including one-to-one library use instruction, essential follow-up techniques, and inclusion, along with proven tips for practicing and integrating these skills into everyday behavior.
The focus then shifts to examine the various special contexts that require librarians to adapt their skills for particular purposes and specific user groups. The authors explore best practices for telephone reference service, collaborative reference, voicemail, and handling imposed queries, and provide advice for working with children and young adults, adults who have special language-related needs, people with health and legal inquiries, and users with social difficulties. In light of the rapid expansion in libraries of mediated forms of reference, there is an exhaustive guide to the principles of communicating effectively in the virtual reference interview, including those conducted through e-mail, instant messaging, and chat, as well as emerging initiatives like Short Message Service (SMS), social networking sites, and Second Life. Coverage is then dedicated to reader’s advisory reference, with specific guidance for engaging readers in conversation about the books they do and do not enjoy. The book concludes with insight into the library policies and staff training programs designed to support librarians in improving information service through more effective reference interviews. Each chapter combines explanatory text with practical, usable models. Examples drawn from real-life reference interviews are included throughout the text, along with sample scripts, practice exercises, and comprehensive, annotated references that can be used as suggestions for further reading.
Through practical instruction and easy-to-implement strategies, Conducting the Reference Interview: A How-To-Do-It Manual for Librarians, Second Edition provides all types of librarians with an invaluable how-to tool to accurately identify user needs amidst new virtual and traditional modes of inquiry.
Conducting the Reference Interview: A How-To-Do-It Manual for Librarians, Second Edition
ISBN: 978-1-55570-655-5.
2009. 8.5 x 11. 225pp. $75.00.
About the Authors
Dr. Catherine Sheldrick Ross teaches graduate courses in reference services, readers’ advisory work, and research methods in the MLIS and PhD programs. Together with Patricia Dewdney, she has written two editions of Communicating Professionally (Neal-Schuman, 2nd ed., 1998), was co-author with Kirsti Nilsen and Dewdney of the first edition of Conducting the Reference Interview, and is a four-time winner of the Reference Services Press Award.
Dr. Kirsti Nilsen taught reference courses at the introductory and advanced level in the MLIS programs at both the University of Western Ontario and the University of Toronto. She is the editor of the 8th edition of the Guide to Reference Materials for Canadian Libraries (University of Toronto Press, 1992) and was co-author with Catherine Ross and Patricia Dewdney of the first edition of Conducting the Reference Interview.
Dr. Marie L Radford is Associate Professor at Rutgers SCILS, and was previously the Acting Dean and Associate Professor of Pratt Institute’s School of Information and Library Science. She was a co-editor of Virtual Reference Service: From Competencies to Assessment (Neal-Schuman, 2008) with R. David Lankes and others, and is active in ALA, ALISE, and RUSA.
About Neal-Schuman Publishers
Neal-Schuman Publishers is the leading provider of library management, Internet and information technology resources, including the highly acclaimed “How-To-Do-It” series. Founded in 1976, Neal-Schuman Publishers is based in New York City with offices in London, UK.
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