Antecedentes
Swett, Samuel. 1979. Personal relations between librarians and readers. Collection Management 3, (2): 257-268. Pág. 257
A schoolgirl has heard that the number of feet in a yard-measure was determined by the length of some king's arm. She asks for the name of the king. Catalogues fail to show where the information is to be found. It at once occurs to the librarian, however, that answers to such questions can usually be had by reference to notes and queries. He sends for the indexes of this periodical and finds the information desired. In handing the needed volume to the inquirer, he takes a minute to caution her that there are many stories and traditions which it will not do to accept as facts without careful examination of the evidence adduced in their corroboration. The librarian utters a similarly timely word of caution when asked about other historical stories of doubtful credibility-when called upon, for instance, to give an account of Captain Smith and Pocahontas, or of the Blue Laws of Connecticut.
Swett, Samuel. 1979. Personal relations between librarians and readers. Collection Management 3, (2): 257-268. Pág. 259
Boston Public Library, and in the catalogue of the library at Quincy, Massachusetts, shall have been increased in numbers and made to include information in regard to the literature of all branches of knowledge, they will, particularly if kept up to date, be found of inestimable service by the general reader and inexperienced student. But the time is distant when the whole field of knowledge can be covered by these notes; and even when it shall be occupied, much personal assistance will still be needed by readers in popular libraries.
Of course, too, it will always be necessary for a librarian to extend to readers the hospitalities of his institution. Among the good results which attend personal intercourse on the part of the librarian with users of popular libraries, the following may be mentioned.
First. If you gain the respect and confidence of readers, and they find you easy to get at and pleasant to talk with, great opportunities are afforded of stimulating the love of study and of directing investigators to the best sources of information.
Second. You find out what books the actual users of the library need, and your judgment improves in regard to the kind of books it is best to add to it. You see what subjects the constituency of the institution are interested in, and what is the degree of simplicity they require in the presentation of knowledge.
Third. One of the best means of making a library popular is to mingle freely with its users and help them in every way. When this policy is pursued for a series of years in any town, a very large portion of the citizens receive answers to questions, and the conviction spreads through the community that the library is an institution of such beneficent influences that it cannot be dispensed with.
Fourth, and last. The collections of books which make up the contents of the circulating departments of our libraries have been provided for the use of persons of differing degrees of refinement and moral susceptibility, and for those who occupy mental planes of various altitudes.
Swett, Samuel. 1979. Personal relations between librarians and readers. Collection Management 3, (2): 257-268. Pág. 264
Personal intercourse and relations between librarian and readers are useful in all libraries. It seems to me that in popular libraries they are indispensable. Six years ago (1870) I was a member of the Board of Directors of the Free Public Library of the city of Worcester, Massachusetts. At that time I noticed that its reference department was hardly used at all, and was fast becoming an unpopular institution. During the last five or six years, by the adoption of the means recommended in this paper, a large use of this department has grown up, and it has come to be highly appreciated in the community. It is because an interesting experience in the Worcester Library has led me to place a high value upon personal intercourse between librarian and readers, that I have ventured to call your attention to the subject in the paper I am now reading. Certain mental qualities are requisite or desirable in library officers who mingle with readers. Prominent among these is a courteous disposition which will disclose itself in agreeable manners. Sympathy, cheerfulness, and patience are needful. Enthusiasm is as productive of good results here as elsewhere.
Swett, Samuel. 1979. Personal relations between librarians and readers. Collection Management 3, (2): 257-268. Pág. 265
In many of the smaller libraries the officers cannot find time to mingle freely with readers. Perhaps, in some such cases, it may be practicable for librarians to avail themselves of gratuitous assistance by public-spirited and educated residents. I should think there are, for instance, many cultivated and philanthropic women in the country whose services can be availed of to do work of the kind recommended. The boards of trustees and directors which manage public libraries may be relied on to appreciate this kind of work and are always inclined to further its performance by allowing time to the librarian in which to do it.
Swett, Samuel. 1979. Personal relations between librarians and readers. Collection Management 3, (2): 257-268. Pág. 267
Al entrar en materia es imposible no hacer alusión a quien se reconoce unánimemente como el “Padre de la Referencia”. En 1876 Samuel Sweet Green de la biblioteca pública de Worcester, Massachusetts, destacaba ya la importancia de ofrecer ayuda al lector en el uso de la colección, mediante su célebre “paper” presentado ante la American Library Association (ALA). El de esta biblioteca sería el primer servicio de referencia organizado de que hay constancia. ¿Qué era la biblioteca antes de contar con un servicio de referencia? Se parecía más bien a un deposito de libros, una colección estática, donde la preocupación profesional giraba exclusivamente en torno de la conservación y el orden.
Rodríguez, Fernanda. 2005. Los servicios de referencia virtual: surgimiento, desarrollo y perspectivas a futuro. Argentina: Alfagrama ediciones. Pág. 15
Las cuatro principales responsabilidades delineadas por Green, hace más de un siglo permanecen inmutables: 1) el bibliotecario de referencia debe ser un instructor, 2) debe satisfacer las demandas de sus lectores, 3) ocuparse del desarrollo de la colección y, 4) de la promoción de la biblioteca.
Rodríguez, Fernanda. 2005. Los servicios de referencia virtual: surgimiento, desarrollo y perspectivas a futuro. Argentina: Alfagrama ediciones. Pág. 17
En los años ‘50 se comienzan a utilizar enormes computadoras para la recuperación de la información, aunque en forma de breves citas bibliográficas, y en los ‘60 se automatiza la tarea de almacenar e indexar los resúmenes y de transformar vastas cantidades de información en cintas magnéticas legibles por máquinas. Sin embargo, resultaba aún muy trabajoso e incluso muy costoso en términos económicos recuperar los pequeños registros, dadas las limitadas posibilidades del recurso. Por supuesto, las enormes computadoras del momento no trascendían las paredes del mundo académico de las más prestigiosas instituciones. Por lo tanto, la biblioteca en general permaneció al margen de esta oleada que sólo alcanzaba a las comunidades científicas y académicas.
Rodríguez, Fernanda. 2005. Los servicios de referencia virtual: surgimiento, desarrollo y perspectivas a futuro. Argentina: Alfagrama ediciones. Pág. 18
Comenzaba por entonces el desarrollo de los primeros bancos de datos, orientados a la exclusiva comunidad que haría uso del recurso por contar con alguna de las escasas máquinas necesarias para tal fin: en 1964, por ejemplo, la biblioteca nacional de medicina de los Estados Unidos creaba MEDLARS (Medical Literature and Retrieval System), base de datos médica. El citado año 1964 podría decirse que trajo muchas novedades consigo, o al menos sentó las bases para los desarrollos futuros: durante la Feria Mundial de bibliotecas en new York, ALA realizó una importante demostración del uso potencial que las computadoras tendrían en las bibliotecas, mediante un sistema que permitiera a los usuarios buscar en una base de datos bibliográfica utilizando la línea telefónica.
Una década después (70’s) se generalizaba el uso de búsquedas online, a los que las bibliotecas del primer mundo se suscribirán masivamente. La tarea seguía siendo costosa y requería de pericia y especialización, generalmente recayendo en profesionales provenientes de la Bibliografía, quienes realizaban las búsquedas a pedido de sus usuarios. El sistema seguía siendo complejo y costoso, lo cual restringía la posibilidad de operar libremente hasta adquirir y afianzar la habilidad requerida. Por ello muchas instituciones optaban por encargar la tarea a especialistas que ya habían adquirido el dominio de las nuevas herramientas. Según Straw fue en este punto donde se bifurcaron los servicios de referencia: por un lado, los tradicionales continuaron desarrollándose desde el mostrador de referencia, y por otro, un profesional se ocuparía de la referencia electrónica.
Rodríguez, Fernanda. 2005. Los servicios de referencia virtual: surgimiento, desarrollo y perspectivas a futuro. Argentina: Alfagrama ediciones. Pág. 20
For all its contemporary relevance, the concept of reference service is over a century old. In 1876, Samuel Green, librarian of the Worcester Free Public Library in Massachusetts, developed the idea of having librarians assist users in the selection of books to suit their needs. This served a dual function, increasing the use of his library’s collection and thereby demonstrating the need for the library. Green saw the role of the public library as one of welcoming users by having a pleasant and cultivated female staff. Some forty years later, in 1915, at the thirty seventh meeting of the American Library Association, a paper on reference work was delivered by William Warner Bishop, the superintendent of the Reading Room of the library of Congress. Bishop defined reference work as “the service rendered by a librarian in aid of some sort of study”, claiming that it was “an organized effort on the part of libraries in aid of the most expeditious and fruitful use of their books”.
Charles Willamson further developed the idea of reference service in his 1923 report “Training for Library Service: a report prepared for the Carnegie Corporation of New York”, which included a course description for reference work:
A study of the standard works of reference, general and special encyclopedias, dictionaries, annuals, indexes to periodicals, ready reference manuals of every kind, special bibliographies, and the more important newspapers and periodicals. Works of similar scope are compared, and the limitations of each pointed out. Lists of questions made up from practical experience are given, and the method of finding the answers discussed in the class.
Cassell, Kay; Hiremath, Uma. 2018. Reference and information services: an introduction. United States of America: American library association. Pág. 23
The Boston Public Library did, in fact, become a reality and opened its doors to the public – all of the public – on March 20, 1854. It was an instant success. In less than six months of operation, more than 35,000 volumes were borrowed. When given an opportunity to read, the public responded at an overwhelming rate, borrowing an average of one book for every two people living in the city, and this at a time when the concept of borrowing books was new to the majority of the population and not yet a common practice. The concept of the free public library was rapidly adopted by other municipalities with 188 such libraries having been established in 11 different states by 1876.
Reference service came about as a direct result of these two innovations. Universal education taught the public to read, and public libraries offered material to read. As a Melvil Dewey put it,
“The school teaches them to read; the library must supply them with reading which will serve to educate, and so it is that we are forced to divide popular education into two parts of almost equal importance and deserving equal attention: the free school and the free library.”
The newly literate members of society knew how to read and sought out materials that would allow them to practice that newly learned skill. Unlike today’s society, where information is ubiquitous, information was somewhat scarce in that time period. Few families owned reading materials and books were relatively expensive, so people turned to the newly formed public libraries for their reading material. However, they had no idea how to use a library. Naturally, they asked the librarians for advice. By 1876, the idea of reference service had been born.
Tyckoson, Dave. 2020. History and functions of reference service. En Reference and information services: an introduction. (eds.) Wong, Melissa; Saunders, Laura. United States: Libraries Unlimited (3-26). Pág. 7
The first discussion of any type of direct service by librarians to help library users was in a paper presented by Samuel Swett Green at the first conference of the American Library Association in Philadelphia in 1876. His paper, “Personal intercourse and relations between librarians and readers in popular libraries,” outlined the concept of the librarian interacting with and assisting the reader. He did not use the phrase “reference service” because that term had not yet been developed. His paper was published with a shorter title in the first volume of Library Journal and is universally recognized as the first professional discussion of what we now call reference service.
Tyckoson, Dave. 2020. History and functions of reference service. En Reference and information services: an introduction. (eds.) Wong, Melissa; Saunders, Laura. United States: Libraries Unlimited (3-26). Pág. 7
When the idea of helping library users was first proposed, the terms “reference service” and “reference librarian” had yet to be coined. However, the term “reference book” was already widely in use. Reference books earned that name because they were the books, such as catalogs, indexes and bibliographies, that one consulted to find references to other sources. By the 1870s, any library book that did not circulate was being called a reference book.
In the first paper discussing reference service, Samuel Green called it “Personal intercourse between librarians and readers.” Fortunately, that phrase was quickly shortened to “aid to readers.” Later, the term “assistance to readers” came into more widespread use as the service end of reference began to be more widely recognized. Because the librarians who helped readers tended to use the books that were located in the reference collection, they gradually became known as reference librarians. In 1985, Melvin Dewey became the first to hire staff with the title of “reference librarian” when he organized the first multiple-librarian reference department at Columbia College. “Reference work” was what “reference librarians” did. That name caught on, and the rest say, is history.
Tyckoson, Dave. 2020. History and functions of reference service. En Reference and information services: an introduction. (eds.) Wong, Melissa; Saunders, Laura. United States: Libraries Unlimited (3-26). Pág. 8
