Reference Services Review: Volume 49 Issue 1

Editorial

Sarah Barbara Watstein, Elizabeth M. Johns

Information literacy competence in curtailing fake news about the COVID-19 pandemic among undergraduates in Nigeria

Magnus Osahon Igbinovia, Omorodion Okuonghae, John Oluwaseye Adebayo

The continuous spread of the corona virus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has generated public health concern with avalanche of information accompanied by series of fake news…

COVID-19 and library social media use

Alexandros Koulouris, Eftichia Vraimaki, Maria Koloniari

The study aims to explore Greek libraries’ social media presence and library operation and social media use during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) lockdown.

Fulfilling information needs by classifying complex patron needs

Charles R. Senteio, Kaitlin E. Montague, Stacy Brody, Kristen B. Matteucci

This paper aims to describe how public librarians can better address complex information needs. First, librarians should classify the degree of complexity of the need by using…

Communication-based approaches to library reference services: anxiety-uncertainty management as a model for communication breakdowns

Brady Lund

This paper aims to present an overview of the history of communication research and theory in reference services literature and to discuss the potential of one relatively…

Personal connections: one library’s history of personal librarian

Elise Ferer

To describe how a personal librarian program at a large university developed, has evolved, and continues to function. This paper aims to assist other librarians in developing…

Is the reference desk used for reference interviews

Idunn Bøyum, Katriina Byström, Nils Pharo

The purpose of this study is to investigate why users turn to the university library’s reference desk and whether librarians make use of the opportunity to conduct reference…

Referring academic library chat reference patrons: how subject librarians decide

Paula R. Dempsey

The purpose of this study is to learn what factors liaison librarians in academic research libraries consider in determining whether to refer chat reference patrons to subject…