Reference Theory & Practice

I'm thrilled to link to my article on The Reference Interview: Theories and Practice, recently published by Library Philosophy and Practice (LPP). They abstract it thusly:

The reference librarian's task is to translate the patron's question into one that can be answered with the library's resources. The first element of that task is to know what the patron wants; the second is to know what resources the library has and how to use them. Reference librarians must learn continuously throughout their careers, both because new resources become available, but also because patrons present questions requiring new resources. This article will focus on how to determine what kind of information the patron needs through the reference interview.

If you're interested in reference, I recommend the article.

And if you speak Albanian, I would suggest you read the first iteration of the article, "Intervista referale: teori dhe praktika," published in Biblioletra in November (pdf of entire issue). The article was originally solicited by my former student and president of the Kosovo Librarians Association Besim Kokollari, and he translated it into Albanian.

For More Information

• Brown, Stephanie Willen. The Reference Interview: Theory and Practice] "Intervista referale: teori dhe praktika," [Article in Albanian] Biblioletra, v4, n2 (2007): 7-11. (pdf of entire issue)
• -- The Reference Interview: Theories and Practice, Library Philosophy and Practice (LPP), February 2008.