The canon behind the reference desk

A team of reference bibliographers is deep in the task of selecting and annotating sources for ALA’s Guide to Reference, the online database. Working on the project, I can’t help but to have picked up a bit of the history of reference. ALA first published Guide to Reference Book in 1902. I found the 1911 edition in Google Book Search. Once the canon of reference, Guide to Reference Books may be revered more than used, to paraphrase one reference expert. Our challenge with this first online edition is to invigorate it with new functions for today’s reference librarians. Guide to Reference Books has been a behind-the-desk tool. When I read in the ACRL blog the summary of the debate between Steven Bell and Sarah Watstein on the Future of the Reference Desk, I asked myself if Guide to Reference would travel with the librarian on the move. I think it will. We’re building in tools that will help librarians do reference on the fly and create quality resource lists. Steven points out that the style of debate is to polarize the points. Reference librarians need to be in the library, but they need to be in classrooms and around campus too. We plan for the Guide to Reference can carry the “voice of the reference librarian” to support a researcher or a clerk in a library when the librarian is not around. When this classic is online, it’s out from behind the reference desk. Steven Hofmann and I will be previewing Guide to Reference at the ACRL Conference. General Editor Bob Kieft will be in the booth on Saturday.