Fifteen WhatsApp Queries a Day: Where Reference Ends and Referral Begins
A district public library runs a reading room from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. with two staff, no separate reference librarian, and a WhatsApp number the public has started using - about fifteen messages a day. In one week three queries arrive. A Class 10 student writes: 'My mother has been told she may have dengue; what medicine should she take and what is the normal platelet count?' A candidate for a government clerical post asks for the last five years' question papers with answer keys, the syllabus, and the cut-off marks. A small farmer asks how much of a particular insecticide to mix in a 15-litre knapsack sprayer for his paddy crop. The reference collection is thin: two general encyclopaedias (1998 and 2011), a state government directory, an India yearbook, a medical dictionary, a small competitive-examination corner, and fourteen newspapers. There is no internet connection in the library, but one staff member has a smartphone with a data pack.
1. For each of the three queries, decide whether you will answer, answer from a source with a caveat, or refer, and justify each decision using the idea of ready reference versus referral.
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Query 1, the dengue question: neither answer nor dose. Give source-based factual information and refer. A reference service supplies information from sources; it does not practise medicine, and it cannot see the patient. I would give the normal adult platelet range from a current medical dictionary or a standard clinical text, citing title, edition and page, and say plainly that this is a general reference figure, not an interpretation of her report. I would not name any medicine. Then refer: the district hospital, the local health helpline, the treating doctor. The 1998 encyclopaedia is not used for a clinical figure at all; it is superseded. The ethics are simple - a wrong dose or a false reassurance is harm, and the library has no way to check the individual case.
Query 2, examination material: split it. The syllabus is ready reference if the library holds the official notification, or if the staff member's phone can reach the official commission's site; print it, stamp it with the source and date. Past question papers held by the library are supplied under fair use with a photocopying limit. Answer keys and cut-offs are contested and often circulated wrongly: supply only the official version, and if it is not available, refer to the official website and the Employment News rather than passing on a coaching-centre key. Say clearly which item is official and which is not.
Query 3, insecticide dose: referral, with the label as the source. Dose depends on formulation, concentration and crop stage, and the authoritative document is the approved label and the state agriculture department's package of practices. Hand over the leaflet or label information if held, or fetch the recommendation from the agriculture department's site, but do not compute or convert the dose yourself. Refer to the Krishi Vigyan Kendra or the block agriculture officer. Reason: a wrong dose is a crop loss and a poisoning risk, and the library's competence is in finding the authoritative current source, not in interpreting it.
2. Design a simple reference query register for this library and explain what you would do with the data.
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Fields, one row per query: date and time; mode (counter, phone, WhatsApp); name, address and mobile; user category (student, candidate, farmer, official, other); the query in the user's own words; type (ready reference, referral, directional, instruction); source used (title, edition, page or URL and date accessed); answer given or place referred to; time taken; follow-up needed; staff initials.
What the data is for:
- Collection development. If the same subject recurs twenty times in a month and no source exists, that is a purchase argument with evidence, not an opinion.
- Staffing and timing. If most WhatsApp queries arrive between 4 and 5 p.m., the duty rota changes; if fifteen a day is unmanageable with two staff, the register proves it.
- Annual reporting. Reference transactions are a standard service statistic and are more persuasive than borrowings alone.
- Evaluation. The proportion of referrals tells you where the collection is failing; a rising ready-reference share shows the collection working.
One caution: names and personal details are confidential. The register stays internal; published statistics are aggregated only. The medical-type queries are recorded by subject, never by diagnosis, and personal mobile numbers are not shared.
3. The library committee offers ₹12,000 for reference sources. What would you buy, what would you refuse, and how does the query register shape the list?
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Spend against observed demand and against currency, not against volume.
Buy: a current India yearbook or state yearbook, because the 1998 and 2011 encyclopaedias cannot answer current administrative questions; a current competitive-examination directory with syllabus and eligibility for the examinations actually asked about; a recent one-volume general encyclopaedia or a good desk dictionary set only if the 2011 set is worn; a current agriculture package-of-practices handbook from the state agricultural university, which directly serves the farmer queries; and a year's subscription plus bound back issues of the employment weekly, which has the highest demonstrated use.
Refuse: a costly new multi-volume encyclopaedia, whose price would consume the whole grant and whose use in a reading room with fifteen queries a day is unproven; duplicate copies of old question-paper guides; and any medical reference that invites diagnosis. The 1998 encyclopaedia is withdrawn from the reference shelf and either discarded through the committee's weeding procedure or moved to the general stack with a dated label.
How the register shapes it: the list is written as a table - subject of query, number of times asked this year, source currently used, source needed, cost. That converts the request from a librarian's preference to a documented gap, and it also gives the committee a way to judge next year's list on the same basis.