The Current Trends and Controversies in the Literature of Reference Services and Their Implications for the Practice of Reference Work

Reference work by virtue of its nature deals with all kinds of information in all disciplines and attempts to provide it to all sorts of people for all sorts of reasons. While the very definition of reference service is a matter of controversy, we will open with an arbitrary one—the actions, and the administration of those actions, by which we assist patrons in their discovery and use of appropriate portions of mankind's graphic record. Note that the definition doesn't say appropriate to what—appropriate to the education, entertainment, edification, growth, etc. of the patron. These are intentionally left out because they are all relevant to our role, and the role of the library. Further, it is very difficult to separate them— who is to say a person well entertained isn't learning something? Who is to say there is not entertainment value in something learned? With this much diversity in the character of reference work, how can its literature be anything but diverse? Therefore we looked at the topic carefully but selectively to provide some semblance of order. Breadth is emphasized more than exhaustive depth. This will not be an enumeration of research studies, publications, or names of all writers on the subject. Instead, it is an overview of the primary issues that have been prominent in the literature and in the field during the last 10–15 years.