Skills for reference staff

[Christopher Platt]

    In response to the two above comments, I have two questions to
ponder.
1.  What if you come from a large library that requires you only to do 
Reference Searching?
      You have a systems person on duty to rely on.
      
      Think logistics--is the systems person always readily available or are 
      staff going to be in the situation of plopping an OUT OF ORDER sign on the 
      computer and waiting a few hours for someone to show up and fix it?  Is 
      the systems person supporting other computers outside the Reference area?  
      If so, do the Reference computers always take priority in maintenance 
      calls?   
      
      I think Ref staff should be trained in, feel comfortable doing, and be 
      invited to do basic troubleshooting.  What I have consistently heard from 
      Reference staff in the libraries I've worked in is that machines and 
      software are often made available for use *without* adequate basic 
      troubleshooting training.
      
      
2.   What if you have a Reference Librarian who "just is not 
mechanically inclined"?
       I should clarify this question by saying this person gets upset
when a >C prompt appears on the
       screen.
     
     I think this could be a whole new area of psychological research.  
     With experience as both a reference librarian and a systems support 
     librarian, I've found that there will always be staff who refuse to 
     believe they can troubleshoot a machine.  Now matter how much you try 
     to "demystify" the machine for them, they just can't (or won't) 
     progress beyond a certain point.  Since most systems people are not in 
     the position of being able to say "you must learn how to do this *or 
     else*...", we just have to accept them and deal with their situations 
     as best we can.  In fact, I'm beginning to believe there *are* people 
     who are just not mechanically inclined, although how any of them got 
     through library school is beyond me since there's very little basic 
     troubleshooting that's more mechanically involved than replacing a 
     card catalog drawer in its slot or plugging in a coffee machine.
     
     Christopher Platt
     NYPL
     cplatt at nypl.org