Several youngsters were in today asking where to find books on the Holocaust. As the Holocaust is broad topic, my job as a librarian is to ask questions in order to narrow down the topic; in libraryspeak that is called conducting a reference interview. This reference interview is one skill I learned about in library school, and it is very useful.
Two high school student were together, and I drilled down to what they were looking for - not easily, of course, because in their minds they knew precisely what they wanted, and to them it was "the Holocaust". One wanted books on Jewish resistance against the Nazis; that one was easy for me. I asked him if the Warsaw Ghetto fit his needs, and he agreed it would. The other one wasn't as easy, but we got there.
Just before they showed up I had started to read this story on BBC News, of how Austrians feel about the Nazism in their past. After finishing with the two students I went back and finished reading the story. I thought it might be of help to them, so I printed a copy, walked over to the 940s (the Dewey Classification number for European history), found them, and gave them the printout.
Another high schooler (and his mother) came in later, looking for books on Jewish resistance to Hitler before the Holocaust. With a little effort, I found some books for them, gave them the call numbers, and, with thanks, they left to go to the 940s. After they left I kept investigating a little more, found two other books that I thought fit their needs; I printed out the appropriate pages, and walked over to the 940s. I gave them the printouts, and they gave me their thanks.
One college student was looking for information on the development of Jewish academies in Babylonia before the Middle Ages. Whew. She did have key words that helped get started on the search, but she gave them to me reluctantly. I asked if academies were the same as yeshivas, and she said yes, but that she used the word academies instead of yeshivas because this was a public library. I chided her mildly, saying we could handle all terms. I do confess I knew nothing about this topic. She used the words Pumbedita and Sura and that eventually did help me get sources for her. An electronic database search turned up articles in the Encyclopedia of Religion and The Encyclopedia Judaica, both of which my library, Hewlett Woodmere Public, owns in print, She read those. She'd also given me the title of a book and its author. No library in Nassau County owns it. I went beyond the limit I was trained to observe, and conducted a FirstSearch on the book. Not only was she not a district resident, she didn't even have a library card! I gently chided her about that, too. I found the book in the Queens College catalog; she's a student at Queens College. So she could have found valuable resources if she'd done the research herself, in her own college library; but she relied on the library to do the research for her.
That's the essence of librarianship, and I so enjoy it. A patron comes into the library knowing precisely what she wants, and asks the librarian a question based on her thoughts; it is the librarian's job to interpret the question, or ask the patron questions, to get to the specific topic that she wants to research. The librarian uses human relationship skills, knowledge accumulated over a lifetime of reading, intelligence, deduction, and arrives at an answer. Then, if possible, the librarian adds an extra piece. In my case, it was the printout that might not have served the high school students, the additional search that will help the college student; what matters is making the extra effort.
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