A thirty-year reflection on the value of reference

Abstract

As RUSA is exploring how, if at all, the word “reference” succeeds in describing what its members do in the twenty-first-century library, it seemed an opportune moment to publish David Murray’s column reflecting on reference services. I hope that this column will help us to continue the discussion of how best to describe, in a usable fashion, the complex work that public service librarians are engaged in. I would be eager to feature the work of other writers who would like to contribute to this discussion, and encourage anyone interested in writing on this topic to contact me at btrott@wrl.org. We all agree, I believe, that our work is important to our users, and the challenge is in finding a way to recognize the changes that have happened in that work without abandoning the strengths that brought us to this point. I believe that David’s column is a good start to that discussion.—Editor