PREFACE
everal years ago， the American Library Association s Reference
and Adult Services Division (now the Reference and User Ser-
vices Association) provided a program at an ALA conference on
gaps in reference research (Whitlatch 1992). The purpose of the pro-
gram was to stimulate reference research and encourage practicing
professionals to conduct research on reference effectiveness. After
the program， many participants said， \"Now I know the questions I
am interested in addressing， but I still don t know how to get started
doing the actual evaluation study.\" This practical guide is designed
to get people started by not only providing information on the basic
techniques that are commonly used to collect data for evaluating ref-
erence services， but also by providing examples of studies readers
can use to get started. An excellent way to begin is to replicate， at
least in part， other studies in the field. The selective annotated bib-
liography in this book is designed to provide a useful guide to study
examples and will aid readers in getting started on their own evalu-
ation study.
For the purpose of this book， reference services are defined as
personal assistance given by library staff to users seeking information.
This assistance includes answering questions at the reference desk，
on the telephone， and via e-mail; performing quick literature searches;
instructing people in the use of library reference indexes， reference
books， and electronic sources; and providing advisory service to read-
ers. The evaluation of library instruction in a classroom or laboratory
setting and of online searching by appointment is not the focus of
this book.
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