ABSTRACT
During the past twenty years, many social and technological developments have had an enormous influence on the varieties of inquiry, the production and dissemination of information and knowledge, and the nature of information mediation. Librarians and others in the information business are, by nature, intermediaries. They form a connecting link between a query and resources that provide a resolution, between an idea and its realization. It has been the responsibility of information professionals to learn and understand the available resources-personal, print, electronic, or otherwise-and know how to use them effectively and efficiently. Such responsibility often may extend beyond what is locally available to resources located at other sites. This knowledge and understanding of resources has often resulted in a gatekeeper role that is beneficial to neither the librarian nor the client. Reference negotiation developed early in the profession to assist the librarian in understanding an inquiry, ferret out what a client really needs, and to pursue an appropriate response. Bibliographic instruction developed to provide patrons with basic mediation tools and information literacy, and thereby reduce the librarian’s virtual monopoly, and to promote the librarian’s role in mediating the information seeking process. On the whole, the interaction of librarians as information intermediaries and clients has been satisfactory and beneficial to both parties. Collegial relationships, where both parties contribute to successful results, come about slowly, yet when they do develop they often result in new ideas that expand the frontiers of knowledge. Today, successful information mediation has gone beyond gatekeeping, from providing an answer or a resource with an answer to attempts to understand the environment, the physical surroundings, the social or educational context, and the ethical, political, and economic climate in which the process takes place.
