IS 245 Information Access

INTRODUCTION– Goals & Assignments– Portals & Guidebooks

Mary Niles MaackUCLA Professor Emerita

"The Desirableness of Establishing Personal Relations between Librarians and Readers."

At the 1876 American Library

Association conference

Samuel Swett Green, librarian of Worcester MA Public Library, presented a paper

that forms the basis of modern library reference service and

argues that librarians must interact with library users and answering their questions.

Green wrote in 1876:Scholars and persons of high social position …have confidence …to make

known their wishes. Modest men in humbler walks of life, … need encouragement be fore they become ready to say feely what they want.

Examples:

– artisan – wall-painter – marble worker – business man – citizen building a house – home-maker – member of the board of trade– A person emigrating– boys & girls

Characteristics & Abilities Needed by Librarians in 1876

Mental qualities

desirable or requisite– Courteous disposition– Agreeable manners– Sympathy– Cheerfulness– Patience– Enthusiasm

Mental Habits• “the habit of mental classification which a librarian acquires so readily comes to

his aid. • He sees at once in what in what department of knowledge the description sought

for may be found and brings the inquirer authoritative treatises in that department

Services advocated by Green and their parallels today 18761. Provide answers for adults and children

2. Guide users to sources; referral to other libraries

3. Teach users to find materia, use reference books

4. Provide research assistance

6. Suggest good reading

20141. Ready reference-adults & children

2. Bibliographic assistance and referral to other libraries; Inter-library loan (ILL0

3. Information literacy, bibliographic instruction

5. Term paper help

6. Readers’ advisory service

“Good Results” of Reference Services (Green, 1876)

By establishing good relations with readers

and by helping inquirers the librarian is able to:

1. Gain “the respect and confidence of readers” and thus “stimulate the love of study” and provide them with “the best sources of information”.

2. “Find out what books the actual users of the library need” and thus know what subjects and level of materials to buy for the library.

3. “Make the library popular” and ensure that citizens believe that it “can not be dispensed with.”

4. “Get readers to take out wholesome books and such works that are adapted to their capacity and grade of enlightenment.”

Principles Advocated by Green

– 1. Respect the reader’s privacy and “reticence.”

– 2. The library should aim for neutrality, never advocate one particular side on controversial issues.

– 3. Never offer legal or medical counsel.

– 4. Offer authoritative sources--lead readers to the “best books.”

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ALA Motto:

“Best books for the greatest number at the least cost.”

Advising a reader on “ the best book he is willing to read.”

“Place in your circulating department … a cultivated woman … who heartily enjoys works of the imagination,

but whose taste is educated.

She must be a person of pleasant manners, and while of proper dignity, ready to unbend and of social disposition. …[She] must have tact and be careful not to attempt too much.”

Columbia School of Library EconomyClass of 1888 with Melvil Dewey in the center.By 1890 a course on reference service was offered by New York State School Library Service in Albany

Mary Wright Plummerfounded Pratt library school, 1890

Plummer believed that women were more sympathetic and approachable--therefore excellent for reference work.

However, she rejected the term “library hostess” and preferred use of the term “information desk.”

1900 - This photo was taken at the ALA conference in Montreal. Plummer went from Montreal to Europe where she served as a U.S. delegate to the International Congress of Libraries, Paris. She also staffed the American library exhibit which won a prize at the Exposition Universelle.

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Library & Information Science at UCLA

The School of Library Service was founded here in 1958

Graduate School of Library & Information Science 1971

The Department of Information Studies in the Graduate School of Education & Information Studies 1993

To the left: POWELL LIBRARY --now the library for undergraduate students

From the Graduate School of Library and Information Science

to the Department of Information Studies

• Books, printed materials and electronic & multimedia materials• Bibliography and webliography & filmography• Cataloging metadata• Libraries and archives, electronic databases, film preservation …

Lawrence Clark Powell

Powell wrote: "I saw the University Library’s

stock of 285,000 volumes increase to 2,000,000, …a staff of 35 grow to 300, and UCLA become known internationally as a dynamic place of books and learning.”

UCLA Libraries

UCLA's library system has: • Over 9,000,000 books • 70,000 serials • 12 libraries • 11 other archives, reading

rooms, and research centers. • It is among the top 15 largest

library systems in the United States, and

• among the top 10 university library systems in the nation

UCLA Libraries

• Arts Library• Louise M. Darling Biomedical Library• College (undergraduate) Library (Powell Library)• Hugh & Hazel Darling Law Library• Eugene and Maxine Rosenfeld Management Library• Music Library• Charles E. Young Research Library• Science and Engineering Library• Southern Regional Library Facility• Gonda Family University Elementary School Library• William Andrews Clark Memorial Library [7]

The 10 campuses of the University of California

All collections are on Melvyl & cooperate in the CDL

California Digital Library / CDL

• Published Works– Full text periodicals – Databases– Indexes to periodical articles– Digital reference works

• Online Archive of California – Inventories of collections– Finding aids – Texts of some documents – Images/photgraphs

Online archive of California (OAC)

.• RESOURCES & SEARCH STRATEGIES

To acquaint students with selected information resources (in both print and electronic form) through exercises that provide an opportunity to gain experience in their use.

IS 245 INFORMATION ACCESSINSTRUCTIONAL GOALS

USERS

-- To offer a preliminary introduction to the research literature on the information needs and information seeking behaviors of different user groups and

– To encourage students to reflect on how such research can aid practitioners in the provision of appropriate and effective reference service.

IS 245 INFORMATION ACCESSINSTRUCTIONAL GOALS

SERVICES

To provide an overview of

• the practice of reference and information service in a wide range of organizational settings and

• to familiarize students with major issues and trends of concern to information

professionals who provide such services.

• .

Textbook & Readings

• Encyclopedia of Library and Information Sciences, 3rd ed– Selected articles on reference

services, disciplinary literature & information seeking

• Part I Concepts and Processes– History– Ethics– Reference interview– User instruction– Service to specific populations

• Part II Information sources and their use– Selection & Evaluation – Directories– Almanacs– Dictionaries& encyclopedias– Biographical sources– Bibliographies, indexing &

abstracting sources

Required text:

Fourth Edition, 2011

deep web / invisible web Publicly accessible information available via the World Wide Web but not retrievable using search engines that rely on crawlers or spiders, for example, data in file formats such as PDF, database content accessible only by query. The number of documents available in the deep web is estimated to be 400-500 times greater than the amount of content retrievable via conventional search engines (the "surface Web"),

Part II: Outline

– Types of reference books– Bibliographies of bibliographies & guides– Portals

• Besigned by librarians • Reference portals for libraries

– Ready Reference Sources• Dictionaries• Encyclopedias

Guides to the literature

• Printed guides to literature of a field are like travel guides because they:– Depict the intellectual

landscape– Show relationships

between various works– Indicate key authors– May discuss different

schools of thought or subdivisions of the discipline

Guide to Reference Bookspublished by the American Library Association

• 1902 1st edition

• 1954 7th edition

• 1986 10th edition

• 1996 11th edition

Bibliography of bibliographies

• Begins with general reference works

• Organized by classified subject in a unique alphanumeric system

Annotations give scope, evaluative comments, and establish importance & relationship with other works.

Walford's Guide to Reference Material:

• British guide first published in 1959

• Issued in 3 volumes by the Library Association

• 8th edition named in honor of A. J. Walford, the first compiler

The New Walford (TNW) Volume 1: Science, Technology and Medicine

Facet, 2006 (with CILIP: the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals

• The first volume of this radically different guide. provides a pathway through the huge quantity of information now accessible via the web.

• The types of material cited have been greatly widened to reflect the revolution brought about by the use of networked information;

• Print resources are included where these are still valuable. Price: £149.95

The New Walford (TNW) Volume 1: Science, Technology and Medicine

Facet, 2005 Review

• The changed and changing information environment is seriously taken into account by the authors.

• The impact of it on the reference work and resources is both discussed in introduction and visible in selection and presentation of the material.

• The whole range of resource categories included in the guide is displayed on the p. xviii as the elements constituting the 'information universe'.

• This could be criticized as a very simplistic picture, but it also has a pragmatic function to explain the grouping of the material within subject categories and fulfils it in a very satisfactory manner– Macevičiūtė, E. (2005). Review of: Lester, Ray (Ed.) The New Walford Guide to reference resources. Vol. 1: Science,

Technology and Medicine. London: Facet Publishing, 2005. Information Research, 11(1), review no. R194 [Available at: http://informationr.net/ir/reviews/revs194.html]

The New Walford Vol 2 The Social Sciences

Facet, Novermber 2007 £149.95

• Psychology• Sociology• Politics• Law• Defense & Security• Government & Welfare• Economics

• Finance• Industries & Utilities• Business & Management• Marketing• Information & Communication• Education & Learning• Sports & Recreation• Human Geography• Area Studies

The New Walford Vol. 3 Arts, Humanities & General Reference

Facet £149.95(announced for release in 2009—not yet available) • The New Walford highlights the best resources to use when undertaking a search

for accurate and relevant information, saving you precious time and effort.• It covers print sources and an extensive range of e-reference sources such as

– digital databanks, – digital reference services, – electronic journal collections, – meta-search engines, – networked information services, – open archives, – websites of premier organizations in both the public and private sectors.

• Rather than supplying a list of all available known resources as a web search engine might, The New Walford subject specialists have carefully selected and evaluated available resources to provide a definitive list of the most appropriate and useful.

UCLA Reference Collection Online (portal until 2009)

UCLA Reference E-resources 2009 -

Former list

UCLA Reference E-resources Dictionaries

There are NINE pages of “E” listing

UCLA Reference E-resources Encyclopedias

UCLA “REFERENCE PORTAL” http://unitproj.library.ucla.edu/search/subjects.cfm

RUSA SECTIONS