Objective One

The goal of objective one is to conduct a reference interview. I have conducted such interviews before in my high school library experience, as students come into the library looking for specific, or more often, very general information. Most of the time they are looking for something their teachers want them to find, and they only have a foggy idea of what it is they should be looking for. Knowing how the teacher works and what their expectations for the class are help tremendously, and we are better able to help the students. For instance, there is one student who comes in every time his class begins a research project and it takes him at least a half hour of talking through his ideas to narrow down a topic manageable enough to research. He wants to research the Civil War or Space, and we must ask several questions to specify which section of those broad topics he should focus on. It's no uncommon, after the initial interview and browse through the online catalog, that fifteen to twenty minutes are spent browsing the shelves as, book by book, he gets a better idea of what it is he's really looking for.
Thankfully, not all inquiries take so long, and a few pointed questions usually get the students headed in the right direction. The question we answer the most is, "Do you have any good books?" The question that we ask in return is, "What was the last book you read that you enjoyed?", and go from there. We're usually able to supply the student with a suitable book within two to five minutes.