Reference Questions- Organizing Information
Posted on: 05/05/2012
When answering a reference question, it is important to be able to properly organize the information. The systematic searching strategies employed during a reference question reveal the way that information professionals go about organizing information. Being able to determine where to look at what is important information is a necessary skill for information professionals to have. I have chosen to showcase my first assignment from the SILS course, as it reveals the systematic process I undertook to answer a reference question for a hypothetical user. It was important to keep the user in mind when looking for the information. In this case, I had to dissect the question into different categories, based on what she needed and how the information needed to be presented. The presentation (French translation) was secondary and therefore was not the focus of the search.
In the future, many users will ask questions that are multifaceted, and as such, I must be able to organize the information into appropriate categories. The information would need to be organized according to the needs of the user, how I would approach the search, the actual search process and finally how to present the information gathered in an acceptable manner. This ability to organize information is indicative of professionalism.
Sarah Nolan 
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