Why reference librarians won't disappear: A study of success in identifying answering sources for reference questions

Source finder (SOFI), a database of annotated reference sources,was constructed in the Nota Bene program to serve in support of reference service at the reference desk of the Main Library at Ohio State University. For more direct access to reference knowledge it was decided to develop,on an experimental basis, an addition to SOFI. This addition would be in the form of a series of Question Units on a variety of subjects, where instructions, last resort suggestions, and sources would be arranged in the form of types of reference questions. To determine whether such an approach would be effective, it was decided to conduct a test of both SOFI Question Units and the libraries' catalog, OSCAR, in regard to identifying answering sources for reference questions.