| 
  • If you are citizen of an European Union member nation, you may not use this service unless you are at least 16 years old.

  • You already know Dokkio is an AI-powered assistant to organize & manage your digital files & messages. Very soon, Dokkio will support Outlook as well as One Drive. Check it out today!

View
 

Gillian Michell

Page history last edited by PBworks 17 years, 4 months ago

Gillian Michell

 

Education and Professional Information

 

Gillian Michell, Associate Professor and Graduate Chair of the Graduate Program in Library and Information Science and Journalism and Faculty of Communications and Open Learning at the University of Western Ontario, London, Canada, earned her MLIS and PhD.

 

Contribution to the Field of Reference Librarianship

 

Perhaps her most noted contribution to the field of reference librarianship is her article “Oranges and Peaches: Understanding Communication Accidents in the Reference Interview,” which she co-authored with Patricia Dewdney and which won an award from the Reference and User Services Association (RUSA) for the most outstanding article in Reference Quarterly for the year 1998. She has written several other articles to help reference librarians hone their skills, including an article with Dewdney that puts forth that librarians should ask "why" questions. Previously, librarians might have thought that there were too intrusive, but they actuall help them to understand what people's information needs are.

 

"Oranges and Peaches"

 

Michell and Dewdney’s piece is remarkable, because it is useful to professionals in many fields, not just reference librarianship. The authors take an anecdotal approach to describing and remedying the problems encountered by the librarian in interpreting correctly what the user actually wants. “Oranges and Peaches” begins with a story about an undergraduate student coming to a graduate student reference desk, having already been disappointed at the undergraduate desk. He states that his teacher wants him to read a book and that he has only an hour before class. The student does not know the author, but it is a very well-known book, and any library should have "hundreds of copies," according to the student’s teacher. The book, the student says, is called “Oranges and Peaches,” but the librarian can find no trace in the computer catalog. About to turn away the, by now, very frustrated student, the librarian realizes just in time that the book that the student requires goes by quite a different name: Origin of Species. It is important that the student divulges that the book is thought to be the "Bible of evolution."

 

Library Reference Problems Identified

 

Michell and Dewdey state in the article that there are four types of misunderstood user requests on the part of the reference librarian: 1) no harm done accidents; 2) unrecognized librarian-originated errors; 3) second-hand communication accidents; and 4) creative reconstruction. Categories two and three are further sub-divided into sub-categories, which are based on observations about language.

 

Library Reference Problems Solved

 

Michell and Dewdey do not recommend blaming the user for the errors; a better approach is to recognize the problems with the interaction. The reference librarian should understand that sometimes the user’s initial question serves only to establish contact with the librarian and is not actually an accurate representation of information needs. The librarian should also realize that the form of the user’s question is sometimes a hindrance to communicating what is required. A remedy to the librarian misunderstanding the user’s information need is to prod the user to give his or her query in context, describing a problem, for example. The librarian then can address it appropriately.

 

A neutral question works best to counteract the categories three and four. The librarian might ask: “How did you hear about such and such topics?” Again, the key is understanding the information need in context.

 

Michell's Other Contributions

 

Regarding Michell’s activities furthering women’s issues, besides writing articles, she was the co-president with Constance Buckhouse for the Western Caucus on Women’s Issues from 1984 to 1985. Some of her articles are cross-disciplinary, dealing with both libraries and feminism.

 

Selected Bibliography:

 

Harris, R., Michell G., & Cooley C. (1985, winter). The gender gap in library education. Journal of Education for Library and Information Science, 25. 167-176.

 

Masters, P. & Michell G. (2001) Access to information: The Canadian feminist periodical index and the Canadian feminist thesaurus. Resources for Feminist Research 2(1/2). 13-14.

 

Dewdney, P. & Michell G. (1997). Asking "why" questions in the reference interview: A theoretical justification. Library Quarterly 67(1). 50-71

 

Michell, G. & Dewdney, P. (1996, summer). Oranges and peaches: Understanding

communication accidents in the reference interaction. Reference Quarterly 35(4).

536. Retrieved on November 20, 2006 from http://www.ala.org/ala/rusa/rusapubs/rusq/specialfeatures/rspawardwinning/19981/1998.htm.

 

Reference and User Services Association. 1998 RUSA Award Recipients. American Libraries Association. Retrieved on November 22, 2006 from http://www.ala.org/ala/rusa/rusaawards/1998recipients/1998recipients.htm.

 

Western Caucus on Women's Issues. Archives. Retrieved on November 22, 2006 at

http://www.uwo.ca/wcwi/archives/pastpresidents.htm.''''

Comments (0)

You don't have permission to comment on this page.