1. Imagining a Revitalized Role for Scholarly Reference in Inquiry and Scholarship
Damon Zucca
Scholarly Reference Publisher
Oxford University Press

2. Lots of reference use online, but it’s not happening through libraries.
Should this be a cause for concern?
Depends on how you think libraries ought to be used.

3. Definitions
“A reference book is a book which is used for looking up particular points rather than for reading them through.”
– The Practical Use of Books and Libraries, 1911
“A print or electronic book designed by the arrangement and treatment of its subject matter to be consulted for definite items of information rather than read consecutively.”
– ALA Glossary of Library and Information Science, Fourth Edition, 2012

4. Reference types Dictionaries Encyclopedias Directories Bibliographies
Almanacs
Handbooks
Manuals
Indexes
Gazetteer
Atlases
Digests
Grammars
Chronologies
Yearbooks
Glossaries
Statistical works
Style guides
Biographical Dictionaries
A&I Services?
Faculty of 1000?
Wiley Wires?
Databases?

5. A term so broad it’s meaningless?
“Whilst reference resources remain potentially valuable in supporting research, the category of ‘reference’ is not well recognized and this inhibits users’ awareness of resources available to them.”
– Navigating Research: How Academic Users Understand, Discover, and Utilize Reference Resources, OUP 2017
“Librarians use reference sources differently now than they did in the past and expect the use of traditional reference sources to decrease because of a shift in information-seeking behavior. Indeed, the use of the term reference seems irrelevant to many librarians.”
– The State of Reference Collections, SAGE 2014

6. The lack of clarity complicates decisions
Why should we care?
The lack of clarity complicates decisions
Collection and publishing strategy
Configuration of discovery systems
Information desk and instruction
Impact on the research

7. Reference as information in context
Reference supports student and scholars at the beginning stages of a research journey.
It is used to:
Check a fact
Gain a basic understanding of an unfamiliar topic
Find reliable sources for further reading
“There are a lot of times when I would appreciate something between Wikipedia level and research paper level and that can sometimes be difficult.”
--US undergrad quoted in OUP’s Navigating Research paper

8. Thank You Please feel free to contact me directly Damon Zucca
Scholarly Reference Publisher
Oxford University Press