Open AccessFrom the President of RUSA: What’s in a Name? Toward a New Definition of Reference
Author(s) -
Anne M. Houston
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
reference and user services quarterly/reference and user services quarterly
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.443
H-Index - 34
eISSN - 2163-5242
pISSN - 1094-9054
DOI - 10.5860/rusq.55n3.186
Subject(s) - terminology , scope (computer science) , reference model , computer science , reference data , work (physics) , focus (optics) , reference desk , linguistics , library science , philosophy , database , mechanical engineering , engineering , programming language , physics , software engineering , optics
Do you refer to yourself as a reference librarian? If so, what does the word reference mean to you? RUSA’s members are less often called referencelibrarians than they were in the past, and they do work that is different from what reference work was once thought to be. Our job titles and duties have changed, and while many of us still do some traditional reference work, the way we go about it is different from it was ten or fifteen years ago. Given this, should we still be called the Reference and User Services Association and use the word “reference” to describe our scope and focus as a group? If not reference, what terminology should we use?