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Reference Interview Questions

Fellow SLA member, Michele McGinnis at the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education, assembled a neat list of reference interview questions through the SLA Solo Librarians Division discussion list. I liked them so I got her permission to post them here. Hope you find them useful too. (If you have other favourites put it into the comments).

What would the ideal report contain?

How do you plan to use the information?

What do you expect to discover?

What would surprise you?

How do you want me to share my findings? (Written report, Sharepoint site, PowerPoint, links to or printed articles, etc.)

How would you like the information organized?

What do you already know that you can share with me? (Emails, letters, notes, articles, websites, etc.)

What keywords would you use in searching? Share as many variations of a concept as possible.

I always ask what is the deadline--one hour, one day, one week? If they respond one of the first two, then I let them know the possibility of that given my current work load.

How current should the information be? (x days, x months, x years)

Urgency and/or impact on the organization?

Would you like to review abstracts/ tables of contents before I purchase or borrow any items (if they are available)?

Who do you want the information delivered to?

Is the information for someone else too?

Is there some way to delvier it that will make it easier for you to use the information?

Neat, eh? It's always useful to remember those old reference interview classes and skills.

Stephen

Full post as published by Stephen's Lighthouse on May 02, 2008 (boomark / email).