ABSTRACT
One of the fascinating things about writing for a journal (word-processing these days), is being able to say what you want even if there is always the assumption that there may be far fewer readers than would satisfy the author. So it is with this present essay, which is concerned with strengthening the perceptions and realities of reference services—an ambitious undertaking at the very least. This article is specifically concerned with the need to accredit the reference services of libraries in the same fashion in which, e.g., hospitals, schools, etc., are certified to be “professionally pure.” While the ideas inherent in this commentary pertain to all types of libraries, the public library will be the model that will be specifically considered. Before getting to this issue, however, the author would like to provide some subjective comments on reference/information service as a matter of background. Parenthetically, to simplify things the author will use the term “reference” throughout this paper instead of the more cumbersome label “reference/information service” which is utilized in RASD's document, A Commitment to Information Services: Developmental Guidelines. 1
