NextGen: Mind the Retail Reference Gap

Kaetrena D. Davis -- Library Journal, 5/15/2006

When I was pursuing my MLS, I would daydream about helping people. Soon after graduation, however, I came to see a darker side of reference—the retail approach. [See also “Retail Reference,” LJ 3/15/06, p. 8.]

The retail approach in reference is similar to what goes on in a clothing store, where customers walk in, browse the racks, ask a clerk for help in finding a particular item or size, purchase it, and walk out. The sales clerk's job is to meet the store's quota even though the consumer may purchase something that is not right for her or him. In the worst case, the clerk contributes to an already horrid wardrobe that serves neither the store's image nor the customer's.

Aim to please

As a library paraprofessional for over ten years before I chose librarianship as a career, I enjoyed working with users to ensure they walked away understanding the research process. The more I learned about reference, the more intense my idealism became. But with “retail reference transactions,” as I have coined them, librarians focus on perfunctory reference behaviors, often finding superficial answers to complex questions. Retail reference doesn't support bibliographic instruction. It requires minimum follow-up and is usually a means of boosting reference statistics.

Of course, sometimes cursory service is appropriate. But when used as a service standard, it poses long-term problems to users and librarians in three ways. First, it prevents users from acquiring or improving information literacy skills. Second, it promotes the denigration of information authenticity. Last, it undermines librarianship by threatening the bridge between the user and genuine bibliographic data.

A reference librarian's charge is twofold: matching resources with a user's request and helping that user understand how to navigate resources for future use. The key to fulfilling those charges is the reference interview.

The interview as gateway

While a well-trained librarian can make short, seamless work of the reference interview, a transaction based just on the face-value of a user's query, a hallmark of retail reference, usually leads to negative short-term results: poor service on the librarian's part and frustration on the user's. More important, though, are the negative long-term results, particularly for users, who may lose faith in the library's ability to help them.

A reference interview is a gateway to teaching information retrieval skills, so when an interaction is cut short, an opportunity to help users become more information literate is lost.

Retail reference transactions also neglect the importance of resource evaluation. While search engines, blogs, and wikis can be great sources for current information, the convenience of these tools can keep users from seeking librarians' guidance in gathering more authoritative data or better understanding how to use new kinds of sources well.

A retail reference transaction that focuses on instant gratification for users who may not realize their question hasn't been answered until they are on their own has the potential to send users unintentionally to questionable information sources. Conversely, a reference interview, by its nature, allows librarians the time to show users the difference between authentic and undependable resources.

Not a daydream

Librarians bridge the gap between users and a wealth of bibliographic data. Retail reference transactions undermine that role by shunning parameters that help users make sense of data. For example, in a retail reference transaction, librarians may not discuss the importance of Boolean logic or truncation. We know these search methods are important, and we should take the time to show users their benefits.

Of course, most librarians are generally not satisfied with giving surface answers. We would much rather know our users walked away from our desk (or chat room) with a basic understanding of the methods and tools they need to get an answer. At the heart of librarianship is the desire to manage the depth and breadth of recorded knowledge.

Retail reference should not be the service standard in any library. Librarians are teachers. We should be encouraged to guide users as much as possible. I challenge library administrators, trainers, and managers to help users build a tailored, appropriate, and comfortable relationship with libraries by encouraging their professional and paraprofessional staff to focus on interactions—not transactions—when performing reference tasks and projects with users. We should create training programs that emphasize model reference behaviors and ensure librarians let users know what resources are available to them.

As a library professional, I still enjoy reference work. Only now I perform research to determine better ways of helping our users in lieu of daydreaming about it.