The Reference Service Press Award, $1,000 and a plaque donated by Reference Service Press Inc., is given annually to the author(s) of the most outstanding article published in RQ, the official journal of the Reference and User Services Association (RUSA, formerly RASD), during the preceding two volume years.
The 1998 award is given to Patricia Dewdney and Gillian Michell for their article "Oranges and Peaches: Understanding Communication Accidents in the Reference Interview" (vol. 35, no. 4, Summer, 1996, pages 520-536). Want to read this award-winning article online? Click here.
Dewdney and Michell "take these 'communication accidents,' which reference librarians often talk about in a purely anecdotal way, and apply an academic, linguistic analysis to them," said David Null, chair of the Reference Service Press Award selection committee. As he explains, "The authors classify these 'illformed queries' into four main categories and offer ways that librarians can 'avert or repair such accidents'" The reason their article was chosen for the award, reported Null, is because it is one "that all types of reference librarians, or indeed any person who deals with the public, can relate to and learn from."
Dewdney is an associate professor at the Graduate School of Library and Information Science and a faculty member in Communications and Open Learning at the University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario. This is the second time she has won a Reference Service Press Award; she is also a co-recipient of the 1996 award. Michell is an associate professor and chair of the graduate program in Library and Information Science at the University of Western Ontario.
