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Reference and Information Services in the 21st Century
 

Chapter 6:
Answering Questions that Require Handy Facts – Ready Reference Source

Updates:

  • The 2007 Statistical Abstract is now available at: http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2007edition.html. It can be searched by keyword, by browsing sections, or by accessing a PDF version that is arranged in the familiar book format organized as subject sections contained within specific page numbers. A print or CD-ROM version can also be ordered from the Government Printing Office.
  • Almanac Update:
    • The 2007 TIME Almanac with Information Please and The 2007 TIME Almanac for Kids Almanac have been updated.
    • Whitaker’s Almanac 2007 along with iterations such as the Concise and Pocket almanac have been released for 2007.
    • The Canadian Global Almanac has not been updated. The resource to consult is the 2007 Canadian Almanac & Directory, 160th ed. It is available both in print and online through Micromedia ProQuest. For a more extensive online resource, the provider also offers the fee-based Canada Information Desk. It is a compilation of both the Almanac and five major directories on Canadian associations, libraries, environmental agencies, financial services and the government. Information on this uniquely Canadian resource can be accessed at: http://il.proquest.com/products_pq/descriptions/canada_info_desk.shtml
    • The World Almanac has recently introduced a blog on its site to update daily facts. It is accessible at www.worldalmanac.com/blog/.
  • Directory Update:
    • The 20th edition of the two-volume National Directory of NonProfit Organizations is scheduled for release in May 2007.
    • The 29th edition of the Corporate Giving Directory was released at the end of 2006.
    • The Foundation Directory Online has added yet another database, the ‘Professional’. The new database, in addition to covering a listing of over 80,000 grantmakers (as in the ‘Platinum’ database), provides additional in-depth information and news stories on grant giving institutions, searches over 230,000 returns of IRS Form 990 for federally tax-exempt organizations, and offers clear color charts displaying funding distributions. It can be accessed at : https://fcsecure.fdncenter.org/fdo_signup_prof/register.php?setplan=professional.
       
  • www.ipl.org
    At the start of 2007, the Internet Public Library was moved from the University of Michigan to Drexel University’s College of Information Science and Technology. Managed almost exclusively by students from Michigan’s School of Information at its inception, this move testifies to the IPL’s popularity and relevance. At its new location, the IPL will be the responsibility of a consortium made up of fourteen additional schools. When last checked, the site was also offering a ‘Grok’ version of results so a user could visualize information through both an expanded and collapsed outline as well as a graphical cluster employing the graduated circles typical of the grokker engine
  • www.lii.org
    RSS feeds are now available from www.lii.org after it moved to a new search engine in September 2006.
  • www.xrefer.com
    Marquis Who’s Who integrated both Who’s Who in the World and Who’s Who in America into the xreferplus Ready Reference collection as of February 2007. The rising popularity of this online platform can be seen in the fact that nearly half of all public libraries in the United Kingdom subscribe to this service.
  • Omnigraphics, Inc., the major publisher of ‘who’ and ‘where’ questions has released a score of updates, some of which are:
    • City Profiles USA 2006-2007
    • Government Phone Book USA, 2007, 15th ed.
    • Headquarters USA 2007, 9th ed.
    • Tool-Free Phone Book USA, 2007, 11th ed.
    • Web Site Source Book, 2007, 12th ed.

    By the summer of 2007, the publisher will be releasing updated editions of:

    • Government Assistance Almanac 2007-2008, 21st ed.
    • Moving & Relocation Directory, 2007-2008, 6th ed.
    • Parks Directory of the United States, 5th ed.

Further Reading:

  • Guz, Savannah Schroll. 2007. “The Promise of Xrefer”. Library Journal, Vol. 132, No.1 (January): 152.
    The reviewer provides an overview and analysis of the portal, calling it the reference librarian’s ‘new best friend’.
  • John K. Roth, ed. 2007. Masterplots II: Christian Literature. Pasadena, CA: Salem Press, Inc.
    A new addition to the Masterplots series is due out in September 2007. The four volume series contains over 450 essays ranging from Church history and encyclicals to apocalyptic fiction and time travel. All selections, plucked from temporally, structurally, and geographically diverse continents, are analyzed and unified through a Christian perspective.  The indexing is extensive and organized by author, title, subject, genre and geography/ethnicity.

Trends:

Easy access to online sources suggests that the need for reference librarians to answer what was traditionally a ‘ready reference’ question is changing. While public libraries have typically fielded the most ready reference questions and continue to do so, other libraries have been reporting a focus on more in-depth research. According to an early article, “one estimate suggests that the Google search engine handles more questions in a day and a half than all the libraries in the country provide in a year"(Kenney et al, 2003). Even if that is not entirely verifiable, it is clear that a large bank of ready reference answers is now available to even the novice online user. A more recent survey found that there was a “…decrease in directional questions and mediated searching and an increase in in-depth reference..”(De Groote et al, 2007).

It is also increasingly clear that the scope of what can be termed as “ready” reference has expanded significantly since the days of the all-purpose almanac. Access to websites, databases, and digitized information continues to grow at an exponential rate so that online sources for reference are exploding. In many cases, what was once a multi step, multi-format research project can now be accomplished with a few clicks.  With access to ProQuest Historical Newspapers, for example, an obituary from an 1850’s New York Times no longer requires decoding the early print index and praying that the microfilm is not too brittle or cracked. It is telling too, that in an elaborate study of how reference courses are currently being organized and executed, two researchers found that instructors spent a majority of their time on teaching electronic rather than print resources (Adkins and Erdelez, 2006), thereby expanding the new librarians’ arsenal of online ready reference and reference resources.

  • Adkins, Denice and Sandra Erdelez. 2006. “An Exploratory Survey of Reference Source Instruction in LIS Courses”. Reference & User Services Quarterly, Vol. 46, No.2 (Winter): 50-60.

  • Anne R. Kenney, Nancy Y.McGovern, Ida T. Martinez, and Lance J. Heidig. 2003. “Google Meets eBay: What Academic Librarians Can Learn from Alternative Information Providers”. D-Lib Magazine, Vol.9, No. 6 (June). Also accessible at: http://www.dlib.org/dlib/june03/kenney/06kenney.html
  • De Groote, Sandra L.,Kristin Hitchcock, and Richard McGowan. 2007. “Trends in Reference Usage Statistics in an Academic Health Sciences Library”. JMLA: Journal of the Medical Library Association, Vol. 95, No. 1 (January): 23-30,
 
 
 

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