Page 71 - DLIS006_INFORMATION SOURCES AND SERVICES

Information Sources and Services

Notes To help users select best documents from the vast galore of books
To justify the existence of the library to the persons/people who provide financial support
Having said so let us now understand what is a reference source.
In general a reference source could be -Any publication from which authoritative information
can be obtained.
In library terms, this source needs to be (generally) limited to standard reference works.
In the present day information age, information becomes a resource as well as a commodity,
and its handling and processing also becomes a major activity. As such, the demands are focused
on the knowledge of what to gather, how to gather, process, and finally its utilization. Varied
users have varied information needs and requirements, be it students, teachers, researchers,
scientists, technologists, specialists, planners or policy-makers. The potential users can have
several requirements such as:
They might need to obtain information quickly for a specific requirement area or availability
of the latest information in the specified area.
As we are aware that more information is being generated than consumed, therefore the
need for selection of information arises due to information explosion.

Besides, a criterion for evaluation and selection of reference materials is also one of the
key components as variety of sources of varying scope and limitation are available.
All these requirements/needs of the users can be met by having access to proper and up-to-date
reference books. Therefore, the sound basis for any reference service in a library is the reference
books maintained by the reference staff of the library. This means that reference service is not
just answering questions posed by the users by using an appropriate reference tool but it is also
about maintaining the information resource banks from which information is provided to
users. It also includes establishing links with information providers both inside and outside the
library environment. Hence, the emphasis needs to be given to the concept of cooperating with
other libraries and information organizations to pool the resources together.
In order to operate in a more effective way, the library should have provision for effective
reference service. This effectiveness however shall depend upon the development and generation,
which is dependent on the access, location, and dissemination of the relevant documents. The
reference service in the library takes care of the function of making available the information,
whereas the library activity of acquiring, organizing, and preserving the reference materials is
something which the users are not aware of, but is of maximum relevance to them.
Besides the users have specific reference queries, which is the most important aspect in the
reference work that relates to the reference questions with their corresponding reference sources.
For fulfilling the information needs of the users, many libraries are facilitating both traditional
form of reference services and complementing and supplementing that with the digital services
using digital tools and techniques to make provision for real time reference services and/or
virtual reference service.

For majority of the questions asked in the libraries, reference sources are the most logical
starting point for searching information.

Did u know? Much of the reference work involves the knowledge of the reference books
and matching the queries to their sources.

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