Reference and User Services

Outcome 5: Reference and User Services

“Retrieve, evaluate, and synthesize information resources to fulfill an information needs assessment; evaluate the usefulness of these resources to the user.”

Course: LI804XS, Organization of Information

Taught by: Sarah Sutton, PhD

Takeaway:
- information access systems
- role of organization in society
- theories and practices of organization
- design of information retrieval systems
- information packages and collections
- taxonomies, thesauri, and ontologies
- basic cataloging and authority control
- for more…

Specific Theories: Ranganathan “The Five Laws of Library Science“

Skills cultivated:
- public speaking
- reference interview
- evaluation of user information needs
- organization of information
- research and information synthesization

Paper: The Use of Medical Information Retrieval Systems, A Review of the Literature
- “The results of this literature review show that medical information retrieval systems lack consistency and are not always efficient. Based on the way medical professionals use current medical information retrieval systems, consistency in how search queries are processed will require continued evaluation on the part of information professionals and clinicians.”