[Chris Sonneveld]

Hi Steph

Thanks for a really interesting post. I have never been a huge reader but I still see a great deal of value in reading and as you’ve said ‘Personal Growth’ is extremely important, something that everyone should discover for themselves through whatever medium they find most enjoyable. Before our Twitter chat on RAs I was unaware that they even existed Maybe if I had taken advantage of them when I was younger I may have found books that were enjoyable as opposed to those that sounded good from the blurb on the back and I stop reading half way through. However, I don’t think it’s too late to start reading so I think I’ll track down an RA and see how I go.

[Chris Sonneveld]

Hi Will

Thanks for a really interesting post. I had to go back to the readings to get a refresh but I’m glad I did. The last sentence definitely says it all. I agree that face-to-face reference services are not dead, we just have to wait till people realise that they don’t have to do everything on there own.

[Chris Sonneveld]

Hi Chris

Thanks for sharing your experience with the BCC Online Reference service. I think the level of service will always be dictated by the person on the other end and like always influenced by those higher up the chain. I’m not sure how long the service has been operating for so it might be interesting to see how the service develops. I used the same service through the National Library of Australia a few weeks ago and I would say I had a similar experience except that I knew that the book wasn’t available at the NLA and always knew I would need an inter library loan. I look forward to see how the online reference services evolving in libraries as like other industries I think it definitely speed up enquiries however it doesn’t work for everyone and the quality of the service will need to be consistent to encourage people to rely on it.

[Chris Sonneveld]

Hi Jennifer, great post. I totally agree with your statement about libraries evolving. I think there may be a divide between people wanting to look through tangible references and digital references. I personally have never liked searching online for my research and have missed looking at physical journals but I know that doing my research digitally will safe me time and allow me to search much wider. There is definitely a need for libraries to increase information and digital literacy skills so maybe as the digital divide becomes smaller then patrons will seek out digital references services more.

[Chris Sonneveld]

Hi Caitlin

Thanks for the great post. I also thought referencing referred only to something we needed to include in our assignments and not a service offered by libraries. Throughout my study career I never thought to ask for help finding with my research. I guess I never wanted to waste the time of a librarian. I may have been lucky enough to just find it on my own. I think if I was doing an assignment that required quite a lot of references that may be difficult to get a hold of then I think I would ask for help or maybe now that I know that it’ s a service offered by libraries I might use them start using it to increase the quality of my research or spend less time seeking out references for my assignments. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a reference service advertised. I have a feeling I’ll see them everywhere from now on.

[Chris Sonneveld]

Thank you Nicole, Stacey and Robynne for your responses. I think it will take a while to replace us but in the mean time we should be able to develop better tools to compliment our human touch.

Here’s a recent article from Forbes.com that you might find interesting: IBM Watson Gets Smarter Artificial Intelligence — Language, Vision And Speech

[Chris Sonneveld]

Thanks for your response and kind words Caitlin. I totally understand that some people don’t want to know everything about computers but in my experience those who choose to push past a basic understanding of how a computer work they are better off in the long run. They are definitely more confident that they are not going to break the computer and when they do ask for help the tend to search for the answer themselves before asking others for help.

[Chris Sonneveld]

Hi Kirsty.

Thanks for the great post. I’m surprised to see no one respond to such a thought provoking piece. I agree that people’s Googling skills and Wikipedia use can limit the quality of the information that someone is receiving. This is reassuring in that the title Reference Librarian may still exist when we finish the course. I think there will always be a portion of the population that will always need a better explanation of how research can be more effective, whether that is through classes or face-to-face interaction. I also agree that if we develop how we interact with our patrons it will not only improve the service that we’re offering as well as keep our service relevant.

[Chris Sonneveld]

Hi Leena

What a wonderful experience. Sorry to here you couldn’t find the footage but maybe one day you will require the services of NFSA again in the future. If anything, I now know that this service exists in case I need to use it, so thank you for writing the post. Also, I really enjoyed how you referred to Ranganathan’s Five Laws of Library Science, throughout the post and how you put them into practice. Maybe one day when technology becomes so advanced that the expression “Finding a needle in a hay stack” won’t be used as much in our profession.

[Chris Sonneveld]

Hi Paola

I really enjoyed reading your post. I agree, there is still a need for reference services as there is a large portion of library patrons who struggle to pick up information literacy skills from all different age groups. Even if we offered more efficient and easier to understand ways of introducing the basic skills I still think that patrons will still want to know more. Whether that is to find what they are looking for more quickly or find a reference that is more relevant. We are here to also give them confidence that what they find is of good quality and to introduce them to resources they may not have known existed.

[Chris Sonneveld]

Hi Robynne

Thanks for the post. I agree with a lot of the comments above that we should provide help with basic searches and skills for our patrons to go beyond these basic searches. We should create a culture of learning more than the basic information literacy skills and as Chris B mentioned, provide classes for our patron’s to develop and hone their skills. I think that by encouraging people to push above these basic search skills this will also help us to develop our own skills as we are not always going over the introductory level information literacy skills.

[Chris Sonneveld]

Hi Debbie

I found your post really interesting, thank you. I look forward to the day when virtual referencing is more streamline. At the moment it’s a bit clunky and the user interfaces could be more friendly. I think in the future when virtual mirrors face-to-face interaction (ie. virtual reality) we could definitely reach a wider audience more effectively. I love that virtual referencing provides the means for people who can’t easily access a library can still be helped. I think the technology has a long way to go and like with any new technology people will have to take time to learn how to use it and trust that there is value in using it over face-to-face referencing.

[Chris Sonneveld]

Hi Steph

Thanks for the review. I attended one of the library’s Endnote classes last year and found it really useful. I had tried to teach myself how to use it but I also needed help with some of the basics so that I could be confident I wasn’t going to lose all my references. Being a Mac user I was also frustrated by how there was no reference to the Mac version of Endnote. They are similar but there is a lot missing from the Mac version compared to the PC version. I highly recommend everyone do an Endnote course as it will definitely save your bacon when writing assignments. There are a few handouts on the QUT website as well if anyone is interested in learning a bit more about the software.

[Chris Sonneveld]

Thank you for your response Stacey. I have posted some information about the Makerspace on our closed Facebook group as I didn’t want to post it here. I agree that a service should be widely and easily accessible because that’s what public libraries do best. If a library is willing to lend out 20+ items at a time there is obviously a great deal of trust between the library and its patrons so I can see how allowing access to expensive computer equipment is not all different. I would hope that the library would encourage people to let staff know if equipment was faulty as I would hate for someone to get blamed for something someone else had done. In the end, the library wouldn’t offer a service that is too expensive to support and I’m sure this was covered when they proposed the new service or else it wouldn’t exist. I’m excited to see libraries providing services like this one and hope it can prove to other libraries that they are important to the local community.

[Chris Sonneveld]

Thank you for your response Sarah. Their enthusiasm was definitely contagious. I can’t see how new-age services like this even exist without it. I mentioned to the organisers about the website needing a little more clarification about which library the service was being offered and they said they would look into it. They did say that they’re were having an official opening next month so maybe they’re in trial mode at the moment. I imagine that you can get so wrapped up in offering such a great service that you can forget the important things. I’m really looking forward to attending the introductory class and learning about the new technologies. I’ll follow up with the organisers on how they hope to monitor the equipment but I imagine if you break a $1500 3D printer you won’t be free to use any other library services for quite some time.

 

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