Library Public Services

This page:
Libraries, Librarians, and the Community | Reference Process | Reference Sources | Reader's Advisory | Interlibrary Loan and Other Access Services

Libraries, Librarians, and the Community

• Every Library - Support for library ballot measures. "Any library initiative anywhere matters to every library everywhere."
• Pew Internet: Libraries - Reports on its surveys of the place of libraries in contemporary America
• Librarians Build Communities

Reference Process

• CORE: California Opportunities for Reference Excellence - A great tutorial on doing reference work
• Technostress and the Reference Librarian - This article by John Kupersmith originally appeared in 1992, but it may be even more relevant now



Live Reference Librarians:

See also

• Ask a Government Documents Librarian
• LiveRef - A directory of sites doing real-time reference service online. Check here to see if your local library is doing live reference before using one of the sites below
• Ask a Librarian - Library of Congress
• Radical Reference - Answers questions at political events and through its Web site. Started during the 2004 Republican convention in New York
• Ask-a-Librarian - U.K. service

Reference Sources

• Answering Reference Questions Using the Internet (British Columbia Library Association, 2002)
• American Library Association, Reference and User Services Association (ALA, RUSA)
• Outstanding Reference Sources - Annual list
• ALA Emerging Technologies Section (ALA RUSA)
• Best Free Reference Websites - Annual list (ALA RUSA)
• Booklist - See the Reference Updates and Points of Reference



Fugitive Fact Files:

See also

• Archives of Questions and Answers
• Fact Sources

At one library where I worked, we had a "fugitive fact file" — that is, a file of answers to tough questions we knew we'd get again. Some libraries are putting these files online

• Let Me Librarian That For You - Pictures of cards from the New York Public Library's file of tough reference questions. (The tag comes from the idea you could ask a librarian when you wanted to know something in the days before Google. Pro tip: You still can. Check the hashtag on Facebook and Twitter also.) (Instagram)
• You Are Not Alone (Maybe): Frequently Asked Reference Questions (FARQs) (Internet Public Library)
• Project Wombat - The mailing list for tough reference questions (successor to the late, lamented Stumpers list)

Reader's Advisory

These sites can help librarians advise users about what books they might like to read

• Author Read-alikes - If you like this author, you might like these other authors (Downers Grove [Ill.] Public Library)
• Book Lists and Bibliographies - Great book lists, mostly from libraries (Waterboro [Maine] Public Library)
• FictionDB - Large database of authors and titles, including reviews and lists of series titles
• Fiction_L Booklists - Compiled by the subscribers of the Fiction_L mailing list (Morton Grove Public Library)
• NYPL Recommendations (New York Public Library)
• OCLC FictionFinder - Search for fiction titles and, because it's OCLC, find them in libraries
• Overbooked - Site with many annotated booklists
• Reader's Advisor Online Blog - News for librarians doing reader's advisory: new book alerts, links to book lists

Web Directory of Reader's Advisory Sites:

• Sarah's Online Reference Warehouse: Readers Advisory (Librarian in Black Sarah Houghton-Jan)

Interlibrary Loan and Other Access Services

If you need interlibrary loan service, check with your library first. That will probably be the easiest and cheapest way to go

• Circ and Serve - Blog on access services
• Interlibrary Loan and Document Delivery Services - A guide to some of the available services (Library of Congress)

Finding Aids for ILL Librarians:

• CAS Source Index (CASSI) Source Tool - Great for deciphering abbreviated journal titles; also searchable for title, CODEN, ISSN, ISBN
• Open Access in Interlibrary Loan - Where to find good stuff for free (Tina Baich, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, 2012)
• Links for the above presentation