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JoBell Whitlatch

Page history last edited by PBworks 17 years, 4 months ago

Jo Bell Whitlatch

 

In October 2006, Jo Bell Whitlatch announced her retirement from serving the field of Library and Information Studies.

 

Preceding her retirement, Whitlatch served as the Associate Dean of the San Jose State University Library from 2001-2006 and as a Lecturer for the Division of Library and Information Science at San Jose State University from 1987-2006. She simultaneously maintained several other positions within her library and campus community which included being a planning member of the King Library Management Team from 2003-2006 and a member of the Academic Senate Graduate Studies and Research Committee from 1997-2006. She also managed to provide leadership for several professional associations holding the positions of Chair for the Library Research Round Table from 2005-2006, Member of the Journal of Library & Information Science (JLIS) Editorial Board for English Articles since 2005, and finally Member of the Orientation, Training, and Leadership Development Committee of the American Library Association from 2004-2006.

 

Jo Bell Whitlatch’s professional, community, and leadership involvement in the field of Library and Information Studies is extensive and spans over a period of over 30 years. For a more detailed record of her accomplishments please refer to her curriculum vitae at the link below.

 

Educational Background

 

Jo Bell Whitlatch began her academic career at the University of Minnesota where she was awarded a B.A. in History in 1964. She went on to study Library Science also at the University of Minnesota where she received her M.A. in 1966. She continued her education in Asian Studies at the University of California, Berkley where she was awarded a second M.A. in 1973. Whitlatch concluded her education at the University of California, Berkley with a Ph.D. in Library and Information Studies in 1987. Her Dissertation was titled “Client/Service Provider Perceptions of Reference Service Outcomes in Academic Libraries: Effects of Feedback and Uncertainty.”

 

Contributions to Reference Services

 

Jo Bell Whitlatch has made many significant contributions to reference services. Her most notable are her efforts in enhancing library operations in which she has researched, evaluated, and published works on library users and research service emphasizing on effective reference service.

 

In Whitlatch’s evaluation of effective reference service she has acknowledged the arrival of the electronic era and how it has threatened face-to-face interactions among library users and librarians (Whitlatch, 2004). She has found that in-person reference service is no longer the preferred means of obtaining reference assistance as phone and email inquires are now available and being utilized. Whitlatch has discovered that evaluating either one of these methods still proves to be difficult because of the intangibility of the interactions. Yet through her evaluative research she has discovered that all of the methods have continued to fail to adequately answer user’s queries. “Quality of service remains tremendously variable and uncertain from users whether provided in-person, by email, or via telephone (Whitlatch, 2004, p. 3).” The disappointment of these services is linked to their poor evaluation which may be caused by the fact that library services are under the umbrella of public service organizations. Most public service organizations are non-profit and do not receive financial support directly from the library users which weakens the direct accountability to them. “The indirect connection between funding and library users also explains why libraries historically have not placed a strong focus on obtaining direct customer feedback on quality of services (Whitlatch, 2003, p. 29).” The confusion about how to classify library users has affected the evaluation of reference services. Library users are not paying customers but they do in fact receive a product, even though that product is intangible.

 

In spite of this controversy, Whitlatch advocates for a customer-focused evaluation based upon business principles. She argues that, “in an age where libraries might no longer survive simply because they are an important good, the profession can learn much from the customer service movement in the business community(Whitlatch, 1995, p.7).” She proposed a refocus using customer service and marketing techniques in hope that library services will be better promoted and better evaluated. Whitlatch believed that, “a marketing plan, an aspect of strategic planning, is a promotional mechanism by which goals, objective and strategies can be measured in quantitative manner (Whitlatch et al., 2003). Whitlatch proposed five principles from the Total Quality Management Model, which is a popular business management model of the1980’s, which would fill a void in the reference services. The principals are listed below:

 

1. Focus on the customer

2. Quality of work the first time

3. Strategic holistic approach to improvement

4. Continuous improvement as a way of life

5. Mutual respect and teamwork- quality service to all users and excellence through continuing education of librarians.

 

Whitlatch also highly emphasized gathering feedback from the library users and library providers, performing ongoing evaluations of user expectations, and continuously assessing resources to keep reference service current and relevant. Whitlatch recognized that this would require involvement from all aspects of library and information studies. She recommended that Libraries invest more fiscal resources in staff training, Schools of Library and Information Science devote some core courses in developing the marketing values and skills in students, and that the American Library Association establish the evaluation of programs and services as a primary professional value (Whitlatch, 2003, p. 29). Whitlatch ultimately wanted to insure that the needs of the library user were continuously, consistently being met.

 

Books Authored

 

Evaluating Reference Services: A Practical Guide. Chicago: American Library Association. 2000.

 

The Role of the Academic Reference Librarian. New York: Greenwood Press. 1990.

 

Curriculum Vitae

 

http://slisweb.sjsu.edu/people/faculty/whitlatchj/whitlatchj_cv.pdf

 

References

 

Virtual Reference Desk. (2004). Reference policies as practiced: Implications for quality service. Retrieved November 20, 2006, from www.vrd2004.org/proceedings/WhitlatchPaper.pdf

 

 

Whitlatch , Jo Bell (2003). Reference futures: outsourcing, the web or knowledge counseling Electronic version. Reference Services Review, 30, 26-30.

 

Whitlatch, Jo Bell (1995). Customer service: implications for reference practice. In Whitlatch, Jo Bell (Ed.), Library users and reference services. (1st ed., pp. 5-43). New York: The Haworth Press Inc.

 

Whitlatch, J., Bodner, N.E., Diefenthal, M.Z., Huling, N., Kluegel, K.M. (2003). Professional competencies for reference and user services librarians: RUSA task force on professional competencies. Reference & User Services Quarterly, 42, 290-295.


 

Catherine Bueno

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