C. Brandi Borman
Pamela Jane McKenzie

2007 Reference Service Press
Award Winners

The 2007 winners of the Reference Service Press Award are C. Brandi Borman and Pamela Jane McKenzie (both at University of Western Ontario, London, Canada). They were awarded the $2,500 prize for their co-authored article, "Trying to Help without Getting in Their Faces: Public Library Staff Descriptions of Providing Consumer Health Information," which was published in Volume 45 Issue 2 of Reference and User Services Quarterly (also known as RUSQ).

Borman and McKenzie are the recipients of the 21st annual Reference Service Press Award, which was established in 1986 to recognize the most outstanding article published in the Reference and User Services Association's membership journal, RUSQ, during the preceding two volume years. Selection criteria include originality, timeliness, rigor of research, quality of writing, and relevance to RUSA's areas of interest and concern.

The winning article builds on the work of Marie Radford and the authors of the “library visit” studies by examining library staff members’ descriptions of providing consumer health reference services. The authors analyzed the ways that staff used accounts of barriers and counterstrategies to describe their work, their libraries, and their users. They concluded that an in-depth study of staff members’ accounts can provide insights into the different ways that library staff members and users construct problems in the reference encounter and can therefore suggest potential solutions.

"Borman and McKenzie's timely article discusses providing consumer health information in the public library setting, as these types of inquiries are increasing in number, said Susan Miller, award committee chair. The article was chosen for the award because it "illustrates how awareness of barriers in the reference encounter specific to consumer health information can result in higher quality reference service."

Reference Service Press is a library-oriented reference publishing company specializing in the preparation of financial aid resources in multiple formats. Its president, Gail Schlachter, is currently serving her fourth term on ALA Council; in the past, she has made outstanding professional contributions to the field of reference librarianship as the Reference Book Editor of RQ, (the predecessor of Reference and User Services Quarterly), Editor-in-Chief of Reference and User Services Quarterly, and President of the Reference and User Services Association.

Source: American Library Association press release, April, 2007.