he objective of a library is not merely to warehouse information, but to help patrons find the information they desire. Though all aspects of librarianship are concerned with this goal, it is at the reference desk that the process of determining the patron's need, formulating a research strategy to fill that need, and providing accurate and complete information to the patron is finally tested. Providing professional-quality reference service is a complex process, requiring extensive subject expertise, knowledge of library collections and systems, and years of practical experience.Studies of academic and public libraries across the country reveal serious deficiencies in the quality of their reference service. Recent studies show that only 55 percent of the factual and bibliographic questions asked are answered correctly.
1In addition, librarians often provide only partially correct information, demonstrate a lack of familiarity with basic reference sources, allow an "internal clock" to limit the amount of time they devote to patron queries, negotiate patron needs poorly, and neglect to refer patrons to someone more informed.
2In the Lee Library (main library) at Brigham Young University, the five subject-reference departments were reorganized in 1986, creating a patron service system staffed by one full-time paraprofessional department assistant and several student reference assistants for each department. The purpose of the reorganization was to make "better use" of professional librarian subject specialists by removing them from staffing reference desks so they could place greater emphasis on collection development and faculty liaison responsibilities. The reorganization was based on a widely held premise that nonprofessionals could answer most of the questions brought to the reference desks and could be properly trained to refer the questions too difficult for them.
Perhaps the most fruitful and exciting development in Old English studies in recent years has followed from F. P. Magoun's discovery that the Parry-Lord theory of oral verse-making can be applied to Old English poetry. This theory has caught the imagination of critics and has produced a “kind of revolution in scholarly opinion” not simply because it shows us that the style of this poetry is traditional—that has been known for many years—but because it offers a new and useful way of approaching the problems raised by this style, because it provides a new way of considering some of the relations between these poems, and because it casts light on an area that we thought was forever darkened, the pre-literary history of Germanic and Old English verse.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.