Qualities of a reference librarian

[jyoti Bajpai]

Please tell me what are the qualties of a reference librarian

[sadsaniya hitesh]

Being really organized and being well read and have a thirst for knowledge and learning new things, even outside your personal realm of interests.

The person should be able to identify a book if a customer wants one, be fast at doing things, explain things clearly, and know where all the books in the library are. Librarians should also have a major interest in social studies.

[jyoti Bajpai]

thanks

[Siddhartha Shankar Ray]

Dear Ms. Jyoti Bajpai,

Thanks for your post.

A reference librarian should be well versed with the subject(s) concerned.

S/He should be able to guide the readers to further learning/reading aids/sources/resources.

A reference Librarian should be conversant with allied fields of the subjects. Like, say, a Reference Librarian in a Medical Library should be knowing about basic/important/front line books & journals on various disciplines of Medical Sciences, both clinical and non-clinical. For instance, s/he MUST have adequate knowledge about Brandon-Hill list.

S/He should ideally have a basic qualification on Life Science, especially with Physiology as one of the subjects. .

Must be well conversant & at home with websites of various national and international sources, (like CDC, NIH, Instt Pasteur, ICMR, Min of Health & FW; WHO, UNAIDS, UNICEF etc.

S/He must have a habit of light reading of the incoming hard-copy books and journals in the Library. This enables one to keep updated.

S/He should have an overall idea and knowledge of Disease burden & recent episodes.(This may sound to be a monumental tusk but actually is not at all difficult; there are several handy materials like WER of WHO or MMWR of CDC)

In case S/He is working in a Research Library, s/he should maintain certain profiles, like Document profile, Country profile and Expert profile etc. It may sound to be impractical & complicated to many but I can tell you from my personal experience that it is quite simple and gets easier and easier with practice.

However, above all, a Reference Librarian MUST BE enterprising, neat, friendly, accommodative & positive minded.

Sincerely,

Siddhartha S. Ray, Calcutta 

[jyoti Bajpai]

thanks sir