General
Glen Ellyn Public Library is committed to providing excellent reference service to all cardholders, regardless of age, race, sex, disability, social, or economic status. Staff of the Adult and Youth departments will assist visitors in the use of reference resources and library materials; provide current, accurate information in a timely manner; provide readers’ advisory service; and provide interlibrary loan and supplementary reference services to Glen Ellyn cardholders. Trained reference staff will provide reference service during all hours that the library is open. All reference questions will be treated with impartiality and confidentiality.
Scope
Reference service is defined as assisting visitors to locate materials that will provide needed information and/or providing answers to factual questions. If determining the answer to a query involves reading and evaluating a large amount of material, the staff will locate suitable materials for the visitor’s use. All answers will be factual and sources will be cited. Staff may not offer personal opinion, advice, or interpretation as fact. In particular, staff is not legally qualified to offer legal, medical, and tax advice. Homework questions will be treated like all other questions, and staff will work with local schools to prepare for major assignments.
Priority
In order to provide effective service to all visitors in an equitable manner, certain priorities and limits have been established. Answering visitor questions takes precedence over all other staff duties. In general, in-person questions will take precedence over questions received by telephone, mail, via the Internet, or other means. The time that can be spent on an individual question depends on whether other visitors or questions are waiting. To ensure that visitors do not have to wait too long for service, generally no more than 10 minutes will be spent with a visitor while others are waiting. If the question cannot be answered within that time, the staff visitor will offer to continue the search and contact the visitor with the answer later.