From Past-Present to Future-Perfect

A Tribute to Charles A. Bunge and the Challenges of Contemporary Reference Service

Linda S Katz

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• eBook ISBN: 9781134753857
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Library & Information Science
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

Explore a compilation of reference service works by Charles A. Bunge, a leader in the field!This informative and delightful book highlights the contributions of Charles A. Bunge to the literature on reference service. From Past-Present to Future-Perfect: A Tribute to Charles A. Bunge and the Challenges of Contemporary Reference Service offers reference librarian professionals the reprints of selected articles by Charles Bunge, bibliographies of his published work, and original articles that draw on Bunge's values and ideas in assessing the present and shaping the future of reference service. Through this guide, you will explore four categories of Bunge's work, which include measuring the effectiveness of reference service, the reference environment, reference sources, and reflecting on the past and future of reference work. This important book will assist you in creating and maintaining an effective and ethical reference service that will help patrons find the materials they need. With From Past-Present to Future-Perfect, you will gain access to some of Bunge's most important articles on the reference environment. Some of the helpful reference service information you will examine includes:

• ways of putting joy back into reference work to counteract the situation of low morale among practicing reference librarians
• discussions on the challenge of continual learning for reference librarians and strategies for updating knowledge and skills
• understanding and organizational strategies for handling stress in the library workplace
• exploring the realm of an ethical reference practice and how a reference librarian should act or behave in providing reference services
• peer coaching programs for reference librarians to assist the learning and sharing of knowledge among colleagues
• organizing electronic reference sources
• assisting patrons with their reference questions
• using technology in the reference environmentThorough and comprehensive, this excellent resource explores the changes that have occurred in reference and information resources, and techniques for setting goals and objectives for your reference department. From Past-Present to Future-Perfect looks at the exciting and challenging world of reference librarianship and gives you valuable insights and ideas on how to improve and update your reference department.

PART 1:
THE REFERENCE ENVIRONMENT

Select Bibliography and Overview of Bunge’s Publications Related to the Reference Environment

Sarah B. Watstein

BIBLIOGRAPHY

“Beliefs, Attitudes, and Values of the Reference Librarian.” Musings 5 (1980): 7-15.

“Strategies for Updating Knowledge of Reference Resources and Techniques.” RQ 21 (Spring 1982): 228-32.

“Planning, Goals, and Objectives for the Reference Department.” RQ 23 (Spring 1984): 306-14.

“Potential and Reality at the Reference Desk.” Journal of Academic Librarianship 10 (July 1984): 128-32.

“Interpersonal Dimensions of the Reference Interview.” Drexel Library Quarterly 20 (Spring 1984): 4-23.

“Stress in the Library Workplace.” Library Trends 38 (Summer 1989): 92-102.

“Ethics and the Reference Librarian.” In: Ethics and the Librarian: Papers Presented at the Allerton Park Institute, 1989. Champaign: University of Illinois Graduate School of Library and Information Science, 1991.

“Stress and Burnout in the Library Workplace.” Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science, vol. 49. New York: Marcel Dekker, 1992.

OVERVIEW

Charles Bunge is most at home in the library workplace, and in particular in the reference environment. There is no question but that he finds reference librarianship to be a satisfying and rewarding pursuit. Indeed, in “Potential and Reality at the Reference Desk: Reflections on a ‘Return to the Field,’ ” he comments: “I am impressed once again with what an exciting, challenging, and joy-filled calling reference librarianship can be.” He is passionately interested in the many facets of reference service, and his writing reflects both this broad interest and his appreciation for the complexity of reference service.

Over the years, Bunge has tackled (and continues to tackle) timely–and timeless–subjects. Examples include the changes in reference and information resources; techniques and clients; planning, goals, and objectives for the reference department; the interpersonal dimensions of the reference interview; the challenges and frustrations of reference work in the 1980s; stress and burnout in the library workplace; and ethics and the reference librarian. He is careful to develop the conceptual framework for each article or paper as well as to define key terms and to provide a brief review of relevant literature before turning to discussion and debate. With a keen understanding of the “daily, hour-to-hour experience of a reference librarian,” he strives in his writing to provide useful information to his colleagues in the reference workplace. Even his literature reviews, such as “Interpersonal Dimensions of the Reference Interview: A Historical Review of the Literature,” are prepared with this purpose in mind.

Bunge’s writings on the reference environment are insightful, provocative, and practical, especially for the application of planning principles and practices at the department level. He outlines and documents changes in focus and emphasis as authors through the years have discussed the reasons for, the nature of, the techniques used in, and the knowledge and skills useful to the reference interview. He reports on the situation of low morale among practicing reference librarians, and shares ideas for putting the joy back into reference work. He addresses the challenge of continual learning for reference librarians, and identifies strategies for updating knowledge and skills. He provides library employees with an understanding of stress and burnout in the library workplace, and shares organizational strategies for dealing with such phenomena. And in the end, Bunge helps reference librarians and others answer the questions, “What is ethical reference practice?” and “How should the librarian act or behave in providing reference service?”

Bunge has made and continues to make an exceptional contribution to the profession, in particular to front-line reference librarians. Bunge believes that a reference librarian will be more effective if s/he has “positive and accepting beliefs and attitudes toward reference librarianship as a job, toward the persons who are served, and toward himself or herself.” There is no question but that Bunge’s contributions in the area of the reference environment have had a positive impact on the development and maintenance of such beliefs, attitudes, and values.

Sarah B. Watstein is Assistant Director for Academic Use Services, James Branch Cabell Library, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA 23284 (E-mail: [email protected]).

Beliefs, Attitudes, and Values of the Reference Librarian

Charles A. Bunge

I am very happy and pleased to be invited to give the Beta Phi Mu lecture here at Michigan. I have a great deal of respect for the Library School at the University of Michigan. I think it ranks second perhaps only to another one in the Upper Midwest that I know well. I am especially respectful of your dean, Russ Bidlack, your assistant dean Ken Vance, and the rest of your fine faculty.

I would like to dedicate my talk today to Wallace Bonk, a friend and colleague, missed by all who knew him. Those of you who knew Wally and his feelings about reference librarianship may think it inappropriate that a talk on attitudes, beliefs, and values of reference librarians should be dedicated to a person who believed so strongly that the important thing for a reference librarian to have is thorough knowledge of reference materials, rather than a lot of training in reference process, the reference interview, attitudes, etc. In fact, Wally got himself engaged in a kind of silly confrontation in the literature on whether you needed to know materials or you needed to know process and the like. Wally came down on the side of materials. Thus, as I say, you may think it inappropriate to dedicate such a talk to his memory. And yet, Wally’s articulate emphasis on the importance of reference materials in reference training challenged those of us who are interested in other aspects of reference training to be as substantive as possible and to make sure that our teaching about the reference process really contributes to the effectiveness of our students as reference librarians. And since this talk resulted from my own reflection and response to that challenge of Wally’s, I think it is a fitting tribute to him and his ideas. I hope that you will agree.

As I was thinking about what I might do for the Beta Phi Mu talk today, and about what might be most valuable to the audience (as well as to myself), I thought I should do something in the area of reference services, because that is the area in which I have practiced, about which I feel I know the most, and which I might be able to share with you most meaningfully. I also thought that it might be useful for me to reflect and study a little bit on some of the things that had interested me with regard to reference service, but that I had not had time to pursue because of administrative duties or because I had not been able to get around to them in my teaching responsibility. So what you are going to get today is the result of my reflection and study on a couple of things that have interested me and that I hope will interest you.

I define reference service as personal assistance provided to someone who needs information-assistance in overcoming the various barriers that exist between that person and the information he or she needs. I think one of the key parts of that definition is the “personal assistance” that is provided. As I have thought about this personal service over the past several months, or even years, I have been interested in two strands of thinking and research and the implications they have for reference service. One of these I will characterize as the concept of ‘helping relationships.” You have probably heard counseling, social work, and other fields referred to as “helping professions,” and I am interested in that concept and the relationship it might have to reference service. The other strand of thinking that I have been interested in I will characterize as “communication” or “communications research,” and the new ideas coming from such research that are of relevance to reference service.

Taking the last first, just to give you a little more of an idea of what I have in mind, communications researchers have recently been telling us some very interesting things about people’s use of information. Researchers like Brenda Dervin, for example, tell us that people are very individualistic about their information needs and uses. Indeed, our librarian’s habit of categorizing people and information sources in order to make matches between them can become one of those barriers that I mentioned. Reference librarians, it seems, need to understand users in terms of the users’ perceptions of the situation they are in–very individual situations–in order to know how they will use the information sought and in order to find appropriate information. Also, under this general rubric of communications and my interest in it, I have been increasingly aware of the importance of non-verbal communication in human interactions such as the reference encounter. We know, for example, that people take a great deal of meaning from non-verbal cues such as gestures, facial expressions, and voice tone, and that these cues can even contradict and undercut our verbal messages. Sometimes, I suppose often, this can happen without our even knowing it. So that is the sort of area of communication that has interested me, and on which I have wanted to follow up.

To elaborate a little bit on the concept of helping relationships, you are probably aware of the number of books that have come out in the ‘70’s, even back into the ‘60’s, that have explored the common elements of professions such as teaching, counseling, social work, and others. Often these are referred to as the helping professions, and the human interactions involved in them are characterized as “helping relationships.” This is related to the so-called “client-centered” counseling, “client-centered” teaching, and the like, which draws heavily on some of Carl Rogers’ ideas. Two things that have struck me as I have pursued some of this literature are that, first, the helping relationship is seen as a cooperative relationship, not one of “I, the professional, doing something/or or to you, the client,” but rather one of our cooperating to find a way for you to cope with your situation as you want to. Second, the technical skills and knowledge of the helping professional seem less important to effective practice than are the beliefs and attitudes held by the professional. This comes through in the literature often when you read about the successful helping professional.

As I was thinking, then, about what sort of talk I might prepare for the Beta Phi Mu lecture today, it occurred to me, “Why not explore the implications of these two areas of thinking, communications and helping relationships, to the practice of reference librarianship?” The more I studied the complexity of information needs and uses and the necessity for reference librarians to understand the unique situation and perceptions of each individual user, and the more I tried to understand how reference librarians can make their verbal and non-verbal cues reinforce each other, and the more I pondered how reference service can be built on effective helping relationships, the more I came to the conclusion that the beliefs, attitudes, and values of the reference librarian are of key importance. What then, I thought, are some of the beliefs, attitudes, and values that reference librarians should develop and cultivate, in order to enhance their effectiveness in assisting those who need information to overcome the barriers that exist between them and the information they need? I think it is useful to group these beliefs, attitudes, and values that are important for reference service into three categories: those concerning our job, those concerning the people we serve, and those concerning ourselves. I want to talk then about each of these groups in turn.

First, though, I should define very briefly what I mean by beliefs, attitudes, and values. A belief is a simple perception or proposition that one holds about an object or a situation. One may hold that something is true or false or that something is good or bad. For example, we may believe that smoking marijuana is harmful to health. We may believe that smoking marijuana leads to loss of motivation and loss of effectiveness as a student or a worker. Beliefs are based on what we perceive to be true or false, and beliefs can be changed by our getting more information or coming to hold a different view of what is true or false.

An attitude is a relatively enduring organization of beliefs around an object or situation which predisposes one to respond in some preferential manner. In other words, various things that we believe about something are organized together in a rather enduring pattern to cause us to be predisposed to act either positively toward it or negatively toward it. To carry my example about smoking marijuana further, various things we believe about smoking it become organized into a relatively enduring predisposition toward it and perhaps toward the people who engage in it. Attitudes can be changed by changing the beliefs upon which they are based or of which they consist. A value is a type of belief, a belief that is centrally located within one’s total belief system, about some end state of existence. Such an end state of existence might be good health, or long life, or productivity. Our positive feeling toward health, or long life, or productivity, for example, will be associated with our attitude toward smoking marijuana. Values are deep-seated and difficult to change, except gradually and as we become aware of them and their relationship to each other and to our perceptions and beliefs about reality.

Going back then, I said that reference librarians need to develop certain beliefs, attitudes, and values about their jobs, the people they serve, and themselves. I want to talk quickly about beliefs and a...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• From Past-Present to Future-Perfect: A Tribute to Charles A. Bunge and the Challenges of Contemporary Reference Service
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• ABOUT THE EDITOR
• Introduction
• Chronological Bibliography of Works Published by Charles A. Bunge
• PART 1: THE REFERENCE ENVIRONMENT
• PART 2: REFERENCE SOURCES
• PART 3: MEASURING EFFECTIVENESS
• PART 4: REFLECTIONS ON THE PAST AND FUTURE OF REFERENCE SERVICE
• Index