Electronic Information Services

August 30- September 5

Electronic Information Services
Important Notes from References Services Book- Bryner and Lanning
Information- data with a meaning and framework 11 22 82 is just data but 11/22/82 is my birthday. Information must be recorded or classified to be published and that is what libraries are all about.

Remember the first class when I wondered how "reference services" fit in to a 21st century library? The readings of Chapter 1,3,7-9 helped shed some light on the toolss that allow users to find information and their transformation through time and technology. While the basic idea to be the "window to the library" has stayed the same, the speed,accuracy and quality of the record keeping have dramatically improved.
Life of Catalogs Quickly:
Catalogs started by monks handwritten in books, hard to update, could not share with other libraries

Card Catalogs monks begin to keep on individual cards using certian styles of library script, may have seperate cards for author, subject, title

Com Cats were computer output microfilm which created cards from data but were short lived. Moved to Microfilm for searching because it was cheaper and took up less space. Easily able to share.

OPAC is the Online Public Access uses a computer file to access and read. Some made own programs, some bought but it extended options for searching.

WebPAC is Web based public access allowed ultimate sharing for users and electronic links.


Open Source Catalogs are integrated library sustems available to anyone with free software.

This is an interesting progression where each advancement comes out of a previous limitation. Important themes I saw repeated were increased user friendliness, ability to update collection information, and increased sharing among libraries.

Extending on the catalog collection are databases and search engines. The personal computer has transformed these electronic reference services.
Databases are collections of related items called records that have specific fields.

Catalogs, Databases and Search Engines put information in the hands of users to make decisions about their information search. This is an important thing to remember as a school librarian. It is not my role to answer every question as the giver of all knowledge but to use these reference tools to empower my patrons to create their own information. I checked out the New Treir Library that was in our first class notes and saw each of these services used in very 21st century ways. They were available for anytime use by the patron for reference anywhere with internet connection. They also had Facebook, twitter, and chatting with librarians to extend their services.


New Questions: What lessons or cirriculum teaches students to use these services effectively? Is it best to embed them into instruction or does some explicit instruction have to be done? What age do we start?