I went to the Reference Renaissance conference in Denver last week and had a great time. I saw some Oregonians, and there were some Oregonians there that I searched frantically for but did not find.

Perhaps the second-most exciting thing at the conference was the plenary panel session, "Theory meets practice: educators and directors talk" with R. David Lankes (Professor, Syracuse University), Jamie LaRue (Director, Douglas County, Colorado, Libraries), Marie Radford (Professor, Rutgers University) and Carla Stoffle (Dean, University of Arizona Libraries).

The speakers were all engaging and passionate about libraries and reference service. What is the reference librarian's role? Are we deprofessionalizing reference? Do we really need a master's degree? What is the most essential skill that reference librarians should have?

You can listen to the podcast version on R. David Lankes' blog. It is a little over an hour and a half.

One of the disappointing things about keynote speaker David W. Lewis (Dean of the University Library at Indiana University Purdue University in Indianapolis, Indiana) was that he didn't provide us with a personal vision for reference services (future, present or past). I heard him tell us all about how much crap we were buried in without offering us a hand up or even a shovel to start digging our way out.

So sure, maybe the conference sessions were supposed to provide the shovels, but I think a lot of us were expecting more.

Jamie LaRue, who you should listen to in the podcast above, was actually a little critical of the conference on his blog,

"...there was more talk about tools than about direction. On the one hand, that's reasonable for a professional gathering: people want to share what they've learned about new products and applications. But I didn't hear a strong, compelling vision for the future of reference services overall."

I agree with him that there was not a lot of "future of reference" discussion, but I did think there were several themes:

1. Libraries are very much committed to "traditional" reference. There were plenty of talks about tools, services, and buildings.

2. Reference services are looking for more ways to bring people in, and it should be easy because we generally poor job of meeting the demand for reference service of patrons visiting our buildings and websites. There were talks about roving reference, marketing, outreach, and "network level" services.

3. Libraries are not just places to go to get information, they are the places where information comes from. This is my phrase and I've been using it for a few months and that's probably why I look for things to put in the category:

Jamie LaRue talked about sending reference librarians to work with community groups, Bill Pardue (Arlington Heights Memorial Library, Illinois) discussed "predatory reference" and Helen Clarke and Susan Beatty (University of Calgary) talked about getting rid of the print reference collection (too expensive to use!) and collaboration with patrons.

What tied it all together for me (and much more, actually, which is why it was the high point of the conference), was Amy Vanscoy's (librarian, North Carolina State University and PhD student, University of North Carolina) talk on Monday about "Reference Librarians' Personal Theories of Practice".

As it turns out, some librarians think reference is about helping someone learn, and some think it is about communication, and some think still other things ("I am like the wind ... ").

She said that she thought the combination of people with different skills and approaches make up for a good reference department, and even a good profession. Hence, having a vision of reference that includes several approaches is a good thing.

Most interestingly, Vanscoy talked about how librarians’ personal theories of refernece don’t always match their organizations’ theories of reference. I’m not exactly sure where to go with that tidbit, but it’s going to be an interesting place.

Amy, if you're reading this, I'm sorry I gushed at you in the hall. I am just so excited for reference.