Ann Marlow Riedling

Designed as a library school text aimed at a reference skills course, this brief guide covers traditional topical information sources such as bibliographies, biographies, cncyclpedias and dictionaries, geographical information, etc. Recognition is give to both print and digital sources but as we all know, the digital access to reference information already surpasses the print versions with some exceptions. In five years, one wonders if printed reference books will even be around, although publishers seem to pump them out as fast as they think libraries will purchase them. For teacher librarians who have created the Virtual Learning Commons complete with learning experiences available 24/7, the investment in quality information sources is the centerpiece. They recognize that students will access digital resources available on their smart devices long before they will walk down the hall or can’t get to the guarded print resources at nights and weekends. Like our old print magazine collections the print reference collection is suffering its last death rattles. This guide hints at this direction. We presume that the best things that reference librarians can learn in such a course is expert and more expert ways of accessing the most reliable information out there and linking kids and teachers to that information alongside a healthy dose of teaching what quality information is. Useful for novices as a gateway into the world of reference information.… (mehr)