Customer Reviews

Introduction to Reference Work, Vol. 2: Reference Services and Reference Processes, 8th Edition

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Where Volume I focuses on basic reference services and the sources of information that such basic reference questions depend upon, Katz uses Volume II to introduce "the sophisticated and imaginative aspects of the complete reference process."

Unfortunately, because a lot of these discussions focus on technological aspects of the everyday work of reference librarians much of the content appears dated and somewhat obsolete. This is confirmed by a quick scan of the "suggested readings" at the end of each chapter which reveals that most are from the 1995-1999 date range, with only a very few from 2000. This is unfortunate because a lot of the content is useful and interesting; but, because of the rate of change we're experiencing in libraries, this text can now only be used for background readings instead of "state of the art" teaching/discussion.

Divided into four parts with three to seven chapters in each, Katz offers readers a fairly good overview of reference librarianship:

Part 1: Introduction / 1. Reference Service and the Community 2. Information and the Community

Part 2: The Internet and Reference Services / 3. The Internet 4. Internet Reference Libraries 5. Networks and Information Costs 6. The Time of Full text

Part 3: Interview and Research: 7. The Reference Interview 8. Rules of the Search

Part 4: Instruction and Reference Policies: 9. Instruction in Information Literacy 10. Reference Service Policies and Evalauation

Bottom line: A far better-written book than Volume I that offers a good grounding in what reference work is all about and the directions library professionals are taking it into the future -- but, now obsolete.

R. Neil Scott

Middle Tennessee State University

I was required to have this and volume I for a class (info-sci). It is somewhat dated, but has relevent points that still apply to today's issues. Many of the facts and figures listed have changed, but even the author suggests tweaking the numbers to reflect current standards. Not a bad read...

This is a wonderful product. It showed up in great shape. What frustrated me was it took alot longer to get the two books. I'm not sure what the hold up was. I paid the extra money for quicker shipping. I did get a refund on the additional shipping. Maybe this was a fluke. I would like to think so. I have allot of books to buy over the next 4 years. I will be more careful next time.

The basics of this tome are a good foundation. But, the information is outdated.