Putting Knowledge to Use - Evolving Global Information Infrastructure and Information Transfer - page 127

nearly all libraries and includes the teaching of information skills (really the educa-
tional function), “ready reference,” and regular reference service. “Ready referen-
ce” is the term used for questions that can be answered very quickly by consulting
one or two information sources.
In most information agencies, some type of information service is provided,
sometimes for a fee. If a service requires an extraordinary amount of a profession-
al's time, the client may be charged—especially in special libraries. Even some
public libraries have charged fees for their services when that service was beyond
the “standard” service for clientele—what we call “reactive” level service, described
below.
A recent example of proactive information service is the concept of the “embed-
ded librarian.” Some public, academic, school, and special libraries send library
and information professionals into their communities to attend faculty meetings or
city commission meetings, to visit with department heads, and to interact in order to
discern information needs, serving as liaisons between the agency and the library.
Then the information professionals work with other members of the library staff to
plan and deliver information services to address those needs.
These services sometimes cross functions, according to our definitions, but
they are launched to meet specific needs of individuals. As technology becomes
more sophisticated, especially with the integration of artificial intelligence, the abil-
ity for computers to diagnose the information needs of clientele will be a major con-
tributor to the advance of information services in the future.
Bibliographic Function
An important information function is that of organizing information for storage,
retrieval, and use. In library and information agencies, the organization of inform-
ation for client use is accomplished through bibliographies, indexes, pathfinders,
and other finding aids.
Once again, to implement the bibliographic function effectively, the information
professional must know the needs of clientele. Then a finding aid can be deve-
loped to address those needs.
A distinct variation of the bibliographic work of most librarians is the bibliograph-
ic function of the archivist. A finding aid prepared by an archivist is equivalent to the
title page of a topic. Unlike the cataloging information used by nearly all librarians
today to catalog topics and other formats, such descriptive cataloging information
is not provided to an archivist, who must study a collection of items (for example,
manuscripts, photographs, realia), understand the collection and its importance,
organize it, and then develop a finding aid. Standards for describing archives have