I have since seen some stuff on the reference interview and maybe our “discussion” of it in my ref class was to read the textbook. I’m just saying that I don’t remember any “real” discussion in class, which seems rather odd since the ref interview has always sort of struck me as the heart of reference work.

I also know that there’s been a ton of stuff written about it. At some point I’ll probably need to turn to it as it might be very valuable in designing interactive IR systems. Not that that’s where I’ll end up; just saying’.

But I still wonder as to it’s value overall, instead of as a subset of communication. But, then, the only way to answer my ?s is to have a look, isn’t it?

I do realize that there are other models, admittedly I am lacking in the what goes on in most reference classes (altho I have had reference and broadcast a few specialized ref courses), and I have not spent a lot of time with many of these sources.

You make a very important point and I gratefully back off my claim; some. While my statement needed some moderating, and your points help do that, I also have some concerns about how much mitigation they are actually capable of.

I don’t imagine that this is something we can easily discuss electronically, or me anyway. Some of my concerns are: you’re in PhD classes (and most ref librarians never got near a PhD seminar), how much time is actually spent on theories of communication in ref classes, to what depth are they compared and contrasted, question asking/answering is a subset (critically important to us!, but how much to my point?) of communication, and so on.

Honestly, I do not even remember the famous “reference interview” being discussed in my ref class, and I was looking for it. Friends who were in it with me swear we did. Perhaps we did, but if so, it was at most 5 minutes and to no real depth. As in much of LIS (MS-level anyway), it was designed only to provide an acquaintance with the topic.

And while it is often necessary that this happens–due to limited time, resources, etc.–mere acquaintance with a topic is (generally) not enough to change one’s actual views on something; especially something so fundamental to our lives and so embodied.

Theory alone cannot change how we interact with the world on a topic of this nature. It can start (some of us) down the road to thinking and studying more on our own. But as I look around at (most of) my fellow students (yes, I know this is purely anecdotal), I do not see a lot of further individual study and learning.

Some of us have an addiction, though, it seems. For instance, I am now 2/3ds of the way through one of the books David recommended. I can probably find Dervin easy enough as I should have something here in the house by her from one of my 2 required courses.

Could you shoot me a citation or 2 for Rogers & Kincaid, Pao and maybe something on question asking/answering? I prefer the more coherent, concise, but (reasonably) complete pieces, or maybe a good lit review article. I can always find my own way into the literature once I have a decent starting point.

Thanks for your disagreement, and I hope you know that I always welcome it. I just wish many of us were closer so we could sit around over coffee, tea, beers, or whatever and discuss more of this face-to-face.

I read the epilogue, “Saying Nothing” yesterday afternoon and it is as David said, “It is a gas. It is a riot.” It certainly has me hooked! I will begin at the beginning of this book and then see what I can do with the others amongst the many other things I need to do.

Highly recommended.

Ok, I see what you’re saying. And I kinda sorta thought you were talking about me, but I certainly wasn’t insulted or anything. I just wanted to join in the conversation!

We’ve had our discussions and I have no doubt we can (and will) have more.

If I’m lucky.

While I was calling for LC to do something in this specific case AND I still believe that they should, your point is something that is actually doable in the immediate present. No waiting on LC to do the right thing….