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Humanities ReferenceLibrarians in the Electronic AgePeggy Keeran aa Penrose Library, University of Denver, 2150 EastEvans Avenue, Denver, CO, 80208, USAPublished online: 20 Oct 2008.

To cite this article: Peggy Keeran (2001) Humanities Reference Librarians inthe Electronic Age, The Reference Librarian, 34:72, 123-136, DOI: 10.1300/J120v34n72_11

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Humanities Reference Librariansin the Electronic Age:Strategies for Integrating

Traditional and On-Line Resourcesin an Academic Library

Peggy Keeran

SUMMARY. Humanists build new ideas and arguments based uponstudies done in the past. Although research requires these scholars topick through the literature that has come before, much has been lostbecause of the lack of adequate comprehensive reference tools. In theage of technology, new projects are available which enhance and enlargethe body of work upon which future scholars can build. For referencelibrarians helping with research questions in the humanities, the marriageof traditional reference tools and new on-line resources means a richercumulation of past scholarship. In this paper, I will discuss strategies foracademic humanities reference librarians to integrate traditional andelectronic reference resources, and the need to continue learning theskills to use both. Humanities reference librarians must continue thegreat humanist tradition of building new ideas upon older foundations bysuccessfully acquiring and using both new and old reference resources.[Article copies available for a fee from The Haworth Document Delivery Service:1-800-342-9678. E-mail address: <getinfo@haworthpressinc.com> Website:<http://www.HaworthPress.com> E 2001 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rightsreserved.]

Peggy Keeran is Arts and Humanities Reference Librarian and Associate Profes-sor, Penrose Library, University of Denver, 2150 East Evans Avenue, Denver, CO80208 (E-mail: pkeeran@du.edu).

[Haworth co-indexing entry note]: ‘‘Humanities Reference Librarians in the Electronic Age: Strategiesfor Integrating Traditional and On-Line Resources in an Academic Library.’’ Keeran, Peggy. Co-publishedsimultaneously in The Reference Librarian (The Haworth Information Press, an imprint of The HaworthPress, Inc.) No. 72, 2001, pp. 123-136; and: Doing the Work of Reference: Practical Tips for Excelling as aReference Librarian (ed: Celia Hales Mabry) The Haworth Information Press, an imprint of The HaworthPress, Inc., 2001, pp. 123-136. Single or multiple copies of this article are available for a fee from TheHaworth Document Delivery Service [1-800-342-9678, 9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. (EST). E-mail address:getinfo@haworthpressinc.com].

E 2001 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved. 123

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KEYWORDS. Reference librarians, research skills, humanities, human-ists, scholarly research, academic libraries

A new on-line index to 19th century art periodicals is developedand made available through RLIN. Digitization projects are beingdeveloped and launched which include the full-text of 19th centuryAfrican-American women writers and pre-20th century British period-icals. A CD-ROM is published which provides subject access to 19thcentury British periodicals. All of these initiatives are examples ofhow technology can be beneficial to humanist researchers and librari-ans. Since humanists’ scholarship is cumulative and much has beenlost because of the lack of adequate comprehensive reference tools,these projects provide greater access to materials that may not havebeen widely distributed or may not have been adequately indexed inprint resources. How do these new resources fit into the larger re-search picture? On-line resources provide new and exciting possibili-ties for research, but they do not exist in isolation; they must besituated in the larger context of reference tools for the humanities inorder that their true value be evaluated and understood. It is the role ofhumanities reference librarians in academic settings to determine thiscontext, and to explain it to members of their communities.

TRADITIONAL RESEARCH METHODS OF THE HUMANIST

In order to provide satisfactory reference service for humanists, oneneeds to understand how these scholars conduct research. Much hasbeen written in library literature about the traditional characteristics ofthe humanist researcher (Watson-Boone, 1994; Fabian, 1998; Univer-sity of Illinois, 1989). The humanist starts with a question, which isexplored using a wide variety of primary and secondary texts, and inwhich ‘‘her or his personal interpretation of material is central to theconclusions reached’’ (Watson-Boone, 1994). The interaction betweenthe humanist, and the question and its text is very personal, and theresources needed by one scholar to answer a question may be com-pletely different from those needed by another to answer what isseemingly a similar question.

With the author at the center, humanities research is text, drawingon text, drawing on text--all dependent on individually created

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connections, responsivity to multiple voices and multiple mes-sages which are nonetheless grounded in text and produce atextual product. (Plum and Smalley, 1994)

Although most studies which report research patterns of humanistswere done before the Internet and web became widely available, thebasic characteristics and needs appear to be unchanged (Fabian,1998). Humanists tend to work on their own; they do not make regularuse of librarians as resources except in specialized collections wherethe librarian’s grasp of the collection makes her invaluable; they sel-dom consult indexes or abstracts but, instead, depend upon bibliogra-phies, journals, and colleagues to keep them abreast of new theoriesand texts; they depend more upon books than journal articles; and theyare inclined to seek out only what they need. Since they are aware ofthe scholarship and scholars in their particular areas, they most oftensearch by title or author, not by subject. Browsing and serendipitousdiscoveries are also important avenues for discovering relevant mate-rials. And, finally, they are not interested in being overwhelmed byvast amounts of information, but do need to have a firm grasp on therelevant material. Throughout this process, the scholar ‘‘accumulates,selects, and interprets information in a way that transforms it intoknowledge’’ (Watson-Boone, 1994).

EVERYTHING OLD IS NEW AGAIN

For on-line resources to be valuable to humanists, they must eitherprovide better control over the material than print sources do, providebetter access, or provide unique research possibilities. Indexes, bibli-ographies, and library catalogs are standard tools for researchers touse. Over the past decade or so, these have been repackaged in elec-tronic format. Librarians may point out to the humanist researchersthat these exist in electronic format, as well as print, but this does notreveal to the humanist how the electronic version can cast new light onthe past. For example, MLA International Bibliography and ABELLare essential for literary research. WorldCat and RLIN, as well asindividual web/Internet library catalogs from around the world allowremote searching of the most traditional library research tool of all: thelibrary catalog. Scholars can search these as they always have: toidentify works by specific authors or titles, or to find locations for

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materials needed. However, these can also be searched in more sophis-ticated ways to serve as more than verification tools. Multiple years ofbibliographic reference tools, many cumbersome to use in print, canbe searched. Thanks to keyword and descriptor searching and Booleanoperators, scholars can be creative researchers. Titles, subtitles, anddescriptors of records can be mined and different concepts combinedwithin a single search, thus focusing on precisely the informationneeded. For example, instead of using Art Index in print to find every-thing written since 1929 on the images of music to locate those specif-ically depicted in 19th century American paintings, the researcherusing the on-line index can combine Boolean logic and keywordsearching to discover if anything has been written on the precisequestion. Interdisciplinary research becomes a reality when multipledatabases can be searched at one time. Instead of basing scholarlyarguments on works by the same scholars or canonical figures,searches become much more democratic and searchers can find for-gotten literary works or scholarship not deemed important at somepoint in the past, never cited in bibliographies of books or articles, andthus overlooked by subsequent generations. The electronic world al-lows traditional resources to look fresh and stimulating.

REDISCOVERING THE PAST IN THE ELECTRONIC AGE

In addition to these electronic versions of print resources, newweb-based projects, which allow scholars to explore primary and sec-ondary sources, are being developed which provide a fresh look atpublications from bygone eras. Two types of projects, bibliographicand digital, bring back to light lost voices and images. For example,Index to 19th Century American Art Periodicals, a web-based index to42 titles, allows searching of American art magazines from the latterpart of the 19th century. In 1961, Helene Emylou Roberts identified, inher library master’s thesis, the titles and scope of the journals pub-lished in 19th century America. In her introduction she laments:

Back rooms and basements of libraries often contain shelf uponshelf of forgotten volumes, little used and seldom dusted. Manyof these are periodicals, a century ago eagerly awaited and avidlyread, but now overlooked and threatened with discard. The sheerbulk of these periodicals and the lack of guide books and indexes

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to their contents have intimidated scholars and librarians alike;yet a wealth of material representative of American life is con-cealed there. (Roberts, 1961)

Nearly 40 years later, an electronic finding tool was created.Librarians with these titles can promote them anew by publicizing thenew index. Those who do not own these journals can acquire themthrough out-of-print periodical vendors or on microfilm. And, ofcourse, patrons can request via interlibrary loan. The index itself pro-vides scholars with the opportunity to explore and reinterpret forgot-ten and neglected aspects of our cultural past.The Wellesley Index to Victorian Periodicals, 1824-1900 is another

small, specialized database which provides electronic access to 4319th century British magazines. The project, begun in 1967, providedthe tables of contents and publishing history for each title, plus theidentification of the author of each title. The long-awaited subjectindex was published, not in print, but on CD-ROM. What could havebeen cumbersome and enormous became flexible and compact.The Internet Library of Early Journals (ILEJ) (http://www.bodley.

ox.ac.uk/ilej/), at present available for free over the Internet, is anexperimental project, intended to evaluate the possibility of digitizingnon-copyrighted 18th and 19th century British magazines. The cre-ators of this project digitized partial runs of three 18th century andthree 19th century British journals, to explore the feasibility of makingavailable, over the Internet, non-copyrighted journals on a large scale.Gentleman’s Magazine (1731-1750) and Blackwood’s EdinburghMagazine (1843-1863) were chosen because these are highly repre-sentative titles from their eras and would most likely attract scholars tosuch a pilot project. The scanned text of journals is full-text search-able, and existing print or electronic indexes are keyed in or linked toprovide subject access. The system cannot be searched across titles,but could be used as an alternative to microfilm or paper. This projectallows scholars to push beyond the static page and to explore the textusing the technology, a technology which allows the scholar to printout and read the scanned image of the text as it originally appeared inprint and to use the software to scan for words and themes within thepublications.The Digital Schomberg (http://www.nypl.org/research/sc/sc.html) is

another digitizing project which includes African American Women

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Writers of the 19th Century and Images of African Americans in the19th Century. Such special collections, made available over the web,allow scholars to delve into materials which have not, in the past,received concentrated scholarly inquiry and which may not be in-cluded in standard print bibliographies found in reference collections.The collections in this special library make widely available literatureand images which extend the traditional literary and historical canon,and help us recover part of our past history.None of these projects provide comprehensive coverage to any

discipline or even part of a discipline, but each does have the potentialto broaden the base of scholarly research. Periodicals included in ILEJhave long been part of the traditional canon, while the art periodicalshave languished on back shelves. Technology allows scholars to lookafresh at established texts and to reclaim those which have been lost.Projects such as those described above rescue from obscurity voicesupon which, consciously or not, humanists have built their own inter-pretive scholarship.

INTEGRATING PRINT AND ELECTRONIC RESOURCES

On-line bibliographic databases cannot yet completely replace printresources; for example, at present MLA Bibliography on-line coversthe years 1963-present, while the paper index covers the years1920-present. And, with all the might of technology, if the citationsare not keyed into the database in the first place, the record cannot befound. Until all libraries convert their card catalogs into on-line data-bases, neitherWorldCat nor RLIN can replace Mansell’s The NationalUnion Catalog, pre-1956 Imprints. The reference librarian needs toassess the question the humanist asks, and determine what will consti-tute a thorough search of the literature.A humanist starts with a question which interests him, and explores

the issues surrounding the question in search of an answer. The hu-manist does not know initially everything she will need during theresearch journey, so the library needs to have the resources availableor accessible, allowing the scholar to advance. In other words, thehumanist needs to have and librarians must make available vastamounts of materials. The humanists’ research is cumulative: Theyneed more than the most current articles or research findings. The verynature of the humanist research process demands that the librarian

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integrate a wide variety of research tools into the library collection.Since the question drives the research, and the scholar does not knowwhich direction the research will take, he needs tools that will bothexpand the boundaries of the question and push the research forward.This basic understanding of the humanist researcher allows the refer-ence librarian to think beyond the format of reference tools and tothink of the coverage and scope of the reference tool and how its usewill help explore the question.If a scholar is exploring a topic concerning images of music in

American paintings from the latter part of the 19th century, both printand electronic sources will expand the boundaries of the research.WorldCat, RLIN, and web/Internet-based library catalogs will allowthe scholar to go beyond the walls of her own library and to seek outmaterials which may not be available on-site but which can be locatedand perhaps borrowed. The Archives of American Art database can besearched through Smithsonian Institution Research Information Sys-tem for papers of artists who used such imagery, and the microfilm ofthese papers borrowed through interlibrary loan. The Index to 19thCentury American Art Periodicals can be used in conjunction withPoole’s Index to Periodical Literature to explore how issues of musicand art were discussed in both popular and art magazines in 19thcentury America. Museum catalog sets such as those from the Metro-politan Museum of Art, Harvard University of Fine Arts, and theWinterthur Museum provide indexing to art journals and analyze con-tents of monographs for late 19th to early 20th century topics in art.The scholar can search on-line databases such as America: Historyand Life, Art Index, Art Index Retrospective, Bibliography of the His-tory of Art, Humanities Index, and others to discover scholarly writ-ings on similar or supportive topics. In sum, there are almost as manyresources to help answer the scholar’s question as there are avenues toexplore. Each tool, whether print or electronic, will allow the questionto be observed from a different perspective, which helps the scholarsadvance their own understanding and interpretations of the texts andimages.Neither the format of the reference tools nor the materials needed

guide humanist research. ‘‘If by some means most of the secondaryliterature consulted by humanists were to be available only in electron-ic form then of course humanists would make use of it in that form justas sources available only in microfiche or microfilm are used by them

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now’’ (Jones, 1995). The electronic world will be integrated into theresearch process as long as it contributes. As it is, the humanist cannotavoid integrating different formats or avenues of retrieval. An on-lineweb-based research tool may lead to a microform collection onlyavailable through interlibrary loan. Humanists and librarians need totake advantage of the strengths of each format, and to be flexible aboutaccepting the material in whatever form it exists.

PRACTICAL TIPS FOR THE HUMANITIESREFERENCE LIBRARIAN IN THE DIGITAL AGE

Technology has not changed the basic skills necessary for academichumanities librarians to serve effectively their institutions. Instead ofconcentrating on the techniques of on-line searching, the librarianneeds more than ever to develop and hone the core skills which makereference librarianship so important: communication, teaching, andbuilding collections.

Communication

Knowledge of the community served is vital for effective referenceservice, and communication is key. If the librarian does not know whoconstitutes the community, collections cannot be built effectively orappropriate reference tools selected. If the librarian and faculty do notconverse, then the fabulous resources the library holds or has madeavailable on-line mean nothing. Who are the members of the commu-nity and what are their current and future needs?In order to assess the teaching and research needs, academic hu-

manities librarians must build liaison relationships. Once the faculty’srequirements are identified, the librarian can more effectively respondthrough collection development, including selection of appropriatereference tools. If the library has formal liaison relationships, thelibrarian is more likely to get a larger picture of departmental needsbecause faculty members in the department know all their colleagueswhereas the librarian may know only a few who are heavy libraryusers. If the library, however, does not support formal liaison relation-ships, librarians need to establish these themselves. As liaisons,librarians must be honest about what the library can and cannot offer

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due to budget and space considerations, but should communicate theconcerns of faculty to their administration for strategic planning, bud-get, technology, and space planning purposes.Librarians need to send faculty updates about new library resources

on a regular basis, and to distribute such publicity selectively andstrategically so that it is not ignored. The publicity should be accom-panied by short evaluations of the products which place the referencetool in the context of other reference sources. Librarians providingreference services for humanists must remember that humanists do notuse what they do not need, so the need to understand why a particularresource may be valuable is critical.As librarians can appreciate, change is constant within the library,

and anyone who has not visited it in a while may feel alienated.Communication helps alleviate this stress. When librarians speakknowledgeably about their collections to the faculty, the faculty cometo realize that this is the librarians’ area of expertise. The faculty thenfeel more comfortable asking questions.Librarians must master the research process and its tools as much as

they can, but they also need to be aware of what it is that they do notknow. To broaden their knowledge about faculty research habits, thelibrarians can ask faculty for resources that they find most useful andwhy. Specialized annotated research guides, such as the annotatedguides to literature, James L. Harner’s Literary Research Guide andMichael J. Marcuse’s A Reference Guide for English Studies, providein-depth descriptions of, evaluations of, and comparative informationabout reference resources. Library colleagues are another good sourceof information. For example, art librarians have an excellent electronicdistribution list with very helpful colleagues, ARLIS-L. If librariansare afraid to ask for help, how can faculty be expected to feel anydifferently?

Teaching

The mission of the academic institution in which the academichumanities librarian works will provide guidance for teaching goals.Within the framework of the academic mission, librarians can discuss,with faculty, methods for integrating library research into coursework. Because of the overwhelming importance of electronic re-search, it is important for faculty and librarians to cooperate and todevelop strategies for teaching students to become effective research-

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ers. The allure of the electronic can seduce students into believing thateverything they need is on-line. If students are provided with the skillsto create effective search strategies, to begin to think critically, and toevaluate materials during the research process, they can become com-fortable within and less awed by the on-line environment. To buildeffective researchers, the librarians and faculty can establish a gradu-ated bibliographic instruction program and identify certain goals forteaching research skills at each class level. As students progressthrough their upper-division coursework, the on-line and print re-sources needed to conduct effective research can then be integratedthrough specialized bibliographic instruction and pathfinders. Usingsuch a format, librarians can begin to teach research skills--includingcreating search strategies and critical evaluation of materials--in theelectronic environment that at the moment may seem so overwhelm-ing. Librarians can also open up the research process for more ad-vanced students by integrating print and on-line resources.At the University of Denver, we have traditional library instruction

programs, including first-year English library research projects, indi-vidual classes covering specific topics, and a for-credit quarter-longresearch methods class. Students develop research skills during theirfreshman composition classes, in which they learn to use the on-linecatalog and a full-text database to write a research paper. The goals ofthis class are to teach students to conduct research, to evaluate theirresources, and to write a persuasive argument based upon authoritativematerials. At the other end of the spectrum, graduate students andsenior honors students enrolled in the English department are requiredto take a quarter-long class entitled ‘‘Bibliography and ResearchMethods,’’ co-taught by an English faculty member and the humani-ties reference librarian. These students use and evaluate a wide varietyof resources, including standard indexes, web pages devoted to liter-ary movements or authors, and a vast array of print resources whichprovide unique access to both primary and secondary resources.Bibliographic instruction and annotated web-based pathfinders are

ideal opportunities to create an overview of resources and how thesefit together. Research guides do exist which exhaustively cover everytype of reference tool within a discipline, but a clear, concise guide tothe holdings in the library, the electronic resources available, and evencollections in nearby research libraries will provide a starting point for

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your community. The humanities reference librarian needs to clarifythe path, to be the guide.By offering hands-on workshops for the faculty in which new re-

sources can be discussed and various search strategies explored, refer-ence librarians can share their expertise and start dialogues aboutlibrary instruction strategies. These partnerships with the faculty canbe invaluable. During workshops, for example, librarians can discusswith faculty the quality of student research expected. This knowledgewill help librarians develop more meaningful library instructionclasses and will provide students with more explicit direction duringreference desk interactions because the goals of both the faculty andlibrarians are in sync.

Building Collections

Susan Szasz Palmer encourages reference librarians to reassert theirmastery over their collections. She writes, ‘‘We need to encouragelibrarians not simply to learn new skills (which is really a euphemismfor becoming more computer literate), but to learn more content, toattempt to have some specialization, some knowledge base’’ (Palmer,1999). This knowledge base includes more than understanding thescope of reference tools; it includes knowledge of the library’s collec-tions as well.Librarians need to build collections that support the mission and

teaching/research needs of their communities. Although the futurepredicted indicates a wealth of information will be available on-line,librarians have to build collections for the present, be realistic aboutwhat will be made available electronically, determine the stability ofelectronic access to the site, and decide if it is affordable. For example,the Index to 19th Century American Art Periodicals, which has noprint equivalent, provides access to cultural information that has notbeen widely used because of the lack of access. This unique resourcemay be valuable to any academic discipline which concerns Americanstudies. However, the periodicals themselves are not available elec-tronically and may never be available electronically. If the library doesnot hold any of the titles indexed, the librarian as builder of collectionscan purchase the periodicals. If lucky enough to have space for thehard copies, there are vendors who specialize in selling runs of period-icals. If not, there are several vendors who have filmed microform setswhich cover these titles. Thus, the librarian invests in a new web-

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based database but, in order to support access to the articles foundusing it, may end up investing in a more archaic form of technology,microform. This should not be viewed as a problem, but as an oppor-tunity to provide scholars with neglected texts by coordinating thepurchase of an index and the titles it covers.Libraries have been called the humanist’s laboratory, since libraries

are the facilities which provide the materials, or access to the materi-als, that the humanist needs to conduct research. Since none but themost extensive research librarians can provide extensive collections,librarians in smaller libraries can contribute to the research needs oftheir academic communities by knowing their own collections, and, ifpossible, the special collections, including on-line resources and mi-croform collections, of the libraries in the geographic area. Knowl-edge of the library collections inspires confidence in skills of librari-ans. One scholar suggests that reference librarians in academiclibraries learn from those who work in small special collections:

. . . there is something else that is special about such libraries thatcan perhaps be instructive in our thinking about bibliographicand reference personnel. The people who man these libraries arevery often the same people who are responsible for acquisitions,for receiving, and for running the cataloging and shelving opera-tion. . . . The intimate knowledge librarians and staff membershave of the collections they manage is available to the researcheras he works side-by-side, often in the same room, with them, andcasual conversations (including introductions to other investiga-tors working there) are part of the normal order of things. The‘‘casual’’ conversation is often a highly instructive exchange. (Free-man, 1989)

In larger libraries, where responsibilities are distributed amongst bibli-ographers, library instructors, and reference librarians, this commit-ment to building collections and knowledge of collection can still beaccomplished through communication and cooperation with librarycolleagues as well as with faculty.In addition to knowing and understanding one’s own collections, it

is worthwhile to become familiar with special types of collections inother area libraries or which are available on-line or in major micro-form collections. For example, although individual records from ma-jor microform collections may be searchable on-line using English

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Short Title Catalogue (ESTC) or WorldCat, not all libraries includerecords for individual parts of major microform collections in theirdatabases. If a member of the community needs one of the periodicalsfound using Index to 19th Century American Art Periodicals which isnot owned by the home institution, it may be included in a largercollection of periodicals such as the American Periodicals Series,which provides access to serials published in the United States be-tween 1741-1900. These types of materials are not always cataloguedand humanities librarians must know how to go beyond searchingunion catalogs to find individual titles; they must also know if possi-bilities exist to find needed materials in alternative formats such asweb-based electronic journals or in microform.

CONCLUSION

Traditional skills of the reference librarian are the key to integratingelectronic and print resources. Communication, teaching, and knowl-edge of collections are core skills. Just as humanist research is cumu-lative, humanities reference librarians’ knowledge of reference toolsand library collections is cumulative. The format of the resources isnot the deciding factor about an item’s usefulness; the content is thekey. The publishers of the web-based resources discussed above, in-tended for scholars, are being developed to allow the content of oldfavorites and forgotten voices to emerge. These publishers understandthe needs of the humanist researcher, and are using technology to pushthe traditional boundaries of research. This allows scholars to lookmore easily beyond tracing bibliographies in monographs or journalarticles and to discover new texts or new ways of looking at old texts.The librarian understands the research practices and needs of the hu-manist and can and should play a central part in bringing electronicresources into the research fold.

REFERENCES

Burnette, Michaelyn, Christina M. Gillis, and Myrtis Cochran (1994). ‘‘The Human-ist and the Library: Promoting New Scholarship Through Collaborative Interac-tion between Humanists and Librarians,’’ The Reference Librarian, no. 47,181-191.

Crawford, Walt and Michael Gorman (1995). Future Libraries: Dreams, Madness,and Reality. Chicago, IL: American Library Association.

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