Lydia Olszak, assistant professor, Joyner Library, Reference Department at East Carolina University in Greenville, N.C., is the 1993 recipient of the Reference and Adult Services Division (RASD) Reference Service Press Award.
The award, $1,000 and a plaque donated by Reference Service Press, Inc., is given to the author of the most outstanding article published in RQ during the preceding two volume years.
Olszak, who is a doctoral candidate in library science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, received the award for an article titled "Mistakes and Failures at the Reference Desk," RQ 39-40 (Fall 1991). Want to read this award-winning article online? Click here.
Past researchers evaluating reference services indicate that patrons receive incorrect responses a majority of the time. Olszak's article follows up on this research with an overview of what constitutes a mistake or failure in reference service and with the strategies used by staff members to alert each other to errors.
"The article is relevant to all reference service transactions and sheds new light on the errors/failures made during patron-librarian interactions," said Ellen D. Safley, chair of the Reference Service Press Award Committee.
Olszak has a bachelor's degree in French from the College of Charleston, a master's degree in library science from Clarion State College, and a master's degree in educational psychology and guidance from the University of Tennessee at Martin.
Source: American Library Association news release, April, 1993.
