Telephone Reference Service

Library Reference Service changed a lot, along with aall other Library services, to survive the Internet. Here is a story of TelRef (Telephone Reference Service) of New York Public Library appeared in New York Times newspaper.

Harriet Shalat, the chief of the service, heard questions like Why, in the age of search engines, would anyone bedevil a human being with such questions? And what human being would choose to be so bedeviled?

She replies "We are detectives," she said. "We know more than people think we know. We're not little old ladies stamping books and telling you to be quiet."

Paul Duguid, an adjunct professor at the School of Information at the University of California at Berkeley, said there would always be a place for such human search engines."If you have a good search question, Google is great for answering it," Mr. Duguid said. "If you don't have a good question, you will get 17 million responses and you will wish you hadn't asked."

So, still there are avenues??

Read full article TelRef (Telephone Reference Service) © New York Times