The Questions about Questions

There were a lot of topics discussed in the librarians thread, but the topic that I want to discuss was the idea of Reference transactions. Now I have heard a lot about reference so far this semester...mainly because I am taking a reference course. We have been told of the various ways to conduct a reference interview and that if possible what we want to do is be able to teach the patron the art of doing searches. In other words, during a reference interview we are not just supposed to be like "ok let me look that up", ignore the patron for fifteen minutes, then come back, hand them a piece of paper and be like, "here you go have a nice day." At the very least, we are supposed to discuss with the patron the steps we are going through to find the answers. Tell them where we looked, why we looked there and how we came across the knowledge. Librarians should be able to provide the patrons with a variety of sources that give different view points, opinions, etc and then allow us to make a decision on the information. Now the question I have been thinking, and lucky for me the question that was discussed in the Atlas is what if the patron does not want to learn. What if they don't want a ton of information, or multiple sources or don't care how you got the answer, they just want the answer. Working at a library I have watched the librarians answer reference questions. Some patrons looking for help are really trying to understand how to better get information, while others are looking for a quick answer and don't care how they get it. Are we really helping the community if we ignore what the patron wants and try to push them to learn the techniques we use. Does it do any good if the patron will not listen to these techniques anyway?

One of the questions the Atlas asked was at what point should a librarian stop providing answers if they are a school or academic librarian and don't want to make the task too easy? I thought that was a great question and one that I had been wondering myself. If a student comes to a librarian for help with their homework is the librarian supposed to look up the answer, or show the student how to find the answer and let them work out what the answer is. I would assume the latter, but I suppose, as the Atlas says it all depends on the situation. The Atlas suggests that to come up with answers for questions like the ones I stated above one must have conversations with the community. What does the community expect when they go to the library and what does the library expect from the community. I guess this really struck me as interesting, because I never realized how important figuring out expectations might be for the library. When I thought of community conversation, I originally thought things like "what programs do you want", etc. But I never thought of it in terms of reference. If you don't figure out what the community wants and expects, a library could end up with unsatisfied patrons who won't use the library again.