1. Primary school
2. Secondary school
3. Tertiary school
4. Format: E-Learning
5. Format: Blended

As a student librarian, you’ll face many situations when students come to you for help. They may be looking for guidance on finding the right information for their Project Work. How can you better prepare for such situations? In this course, you’ll learn how to conduct a ‘reference interview’ to better understand the needs of such patrons. You’ll also learn how to navigate the different sources of information in the library efficiently so that you can meet the needs of the patrons quickly.

Learning objectives

By the end of this course, you'll will be able to:

• Describe the ‘Reference Interview’ process
• Develop a search strategy to help the user find the information he/she needs
• Suggest suitable reference resources to match the information needs of the customer
• List the 10 main subject categories of the Dewey Decimal Classification system

Course outline

Module 1:

• The Enquiry process: 4 stages
• Conducting the Reference Interview
• Qualities Library staff should possess

Module 2:

• Developing a search strategy
• Understanding the Dewey Decimal Classification system
• Types of Reference resources and their uses

Module 3:

• Scenarios: Helping Library users