Running head: REFLECTIVE ESSAY 1

Reflective Essay

William R. Walker

Wayne State University

REFLECTIVE ESSAY 2

As an emerging library and information science (LIS) professional, I have come to

believe that LIS professionals are information brokers who collect and find information

resources efficiently, and this efficiency must be taught to users of LIS institutions. While I am

in the employ of a LIS institution, I must collect information resources that appeal to users’

information needs, while displaying such resources in visually inviting manners. Additionally, I

must provide reference services and readers advisory services that facilitate users’ abilities to

access information resources at LIS institutions. LIS professionals are practical information

gatherers who manage information resources and provide communities access to information

resources.

LIS professionals are practical information gatherers who carefully collect and place

information resources within their institutions and create well-presented online catalogs of their

institutions’ information resources. LIS professionals carefully collect and place information

resources within their institutions in order to satisfy users’ needs and to facilitate users’ speedy

retrieval of desired information resources. The collection of information resources by LIS

professionals requires the evaluation of users’ information needs at an institution, while the

placement of information resources involves the physical placement of information resources in

an aesthetically pleasing and easily accessible manner. “The layout of the library affects price –

the user’s time – as well as how products may be accessed or promoted” (Koontz, 2008, p. 84).

Practical LIS professionals collect information resources that pique the interest of a certain

population of the institution and place such information resources in visually pleasing and easily

accessible displays, all of which increase patronage to the LIS professionals’ institutions and

save users’ time. Practical LIS professionals also create useable online public access catalogs to

facilitate the quick acquisition of desired information resources by users. Practical LIS
REFLECTIVE ESSAY 3

professionals create visually appealing online public access catalogs that easily aid users’

retrieval of desired information resources and related works. “When the information is clear,

easily retrieved, and well presented, the user does not notice system design or organizing

elements. It is only when there are problems or confusion that these elements become an issue”

(Taylor, 2008, p. 107). The design of unobtrusive online public access catalogs by LIS

professionals enables LIS professionals to aid users to retrieve information resources with little-

to-no help from LIS professionals. Practical LIS professionals do many tasks, however, the

collection and placement of information resources and the creation of visually appealing and

functional online public catalogs by LIS professionals greatly saves users’ time spent.

The practicality of LIS professionals as information gatherers is also evidenced in the

reference services and readers advisory services that LIS professionals provide to users so that

such users can easily gain access to information resources. LIS professionals provide reference

services to users of LIS institutions, and these services empower such users to find a wealth of

information resources for themselves. Useful LIS professionals conduct reference interviews

that ask general and specific questions regarding users’ information needs, and the result of this

line of questioning by LIS professionals is to empower the users of LIS institutions to find

information resources efficiently for themselves. “The question answering role of the reference

librarian has shifted over time from specific, factual questions to broader, inexact subjects. As a

result, the role of the reference librarian has shifted from providing specific answers to serving as

a research counselor. We don’t answer questions much any more, but we guide people through

the process to determining what an answer might be” (Tyckoson, 2008, p. 132). By guiding

users to find information resources for themselves, LIS professionals empower users to become

self-sufficient information gatherers. LIS professionals also provide users of LIS institutions
REFLECTIVE ESSAY 4

access to information resources via readers advisory services. Readers advisory services are

another outlet that LIS professionals utilize to provide users of LIS institutions access to

information resources. “The various practices that make up readers advisory services range on a

spectrum from those highly interactive, such as the face-to-face encounter or reading discussion

groups, to those that are not interactive, like merchandising, which depend on the strategic use of

space and browser behavior to put books and readers together” (Chelton, 2008, p. 160). Savvy

LIS professionals also provide competent readers advisory services to users in order to decide

what non-fiction and fiction information resources that LIS institutions should obtain in order to

increase patronage to the LIS institution, along with the main goal of this services which is to

provide users access to information resources. Reference services and readers advisory services

are functions of LIS professionals that further provide users access to information resources.

Throughout my initial coursework at Wayne State University, I have learned that LIS

professionals must broker the acquisition of information resources between users and LIS

institutions through collection development and advisory services. In my LIS 6010 course, I

have researched the collection development tendencies of Belle da Costa Greene, librarian to the

famed Pierpont Morgan Library in New York City, research that is represented in an expository

essay that I wrote titled, “The Collections Development, Professional Development, and

Purchasing Acumen of Belle da Costa Greene.” Additionally, I have begun to explore issues

surrounding the problems that LIS institutions face when such institutions try to provide users

access to information resources that are deemed controversial by communities at-large, as seen in

an expository essay I composed for LIS 6010 titled, “Controversial Speakers and the Neutrality

of Libraries. As a future LIS professional, it is my desire to be able to work at a LIS institution

REFLECTIVE ESSAY 5

whereby I can provide efficient services to users that eliminate the divide between information

resources and such users.

REFLECTIVE ESSAY 6

References

Chelton, M. K. (2008). Readers advisory services: How to help users find a “good book”. In K.

Haycock, & B. E. Sheldon (Eds.), The Portable MLIS: Insights from the Experts. (pp.

159-167). Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited.

Koontz, C. (2008). Marketing – The driving force of your library. In K. Haycock, & B. E.

Sheldon (Eds.), The Portable MLIS: Insights from the Experts. (pp. 77-86). Westport,

CT: Libraries Unlimited.

Taylor, A. G. (2008). Organization and representation of information/knowledge. In K.

Haycock, & B. E. Sheldon (Eds.), The Portable MLIS: Insights from the Experts. (pp. 98-

111). Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited.

Tyckoson, D. A. (2008). Reference services: The personal side of librarianship. In K. Haycock,

& B. E. Sheldon (Eds.), The Portable MLIS: Insights from the Experts. (pp. 127-146).

Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited.