7.8 Referral services
Referral means suggesting where a user can find information
that is not available in the resource centre. Referral services
are among the most important services offered by a resource
centre.
No resource centre can hold all the materials available on
all the subjects of interest to their users. It is important
to know about other sources of information, so that users can
be referred to them if necessary.
Other sources of information may include members of a network
(see Section 8.3: Networks
and networking), or other resource centres, either in the
same country or elsewhere, that provide enquiries services (see
Section 7.11) or document supply services (see
Section 7.7).
It is possible to find out about other resource centres and
information services by:
- scanning or reading newsletters on the subject areas that
the resource centre covers
- networking with staff in other resource centres - those
in the same country specialising in any subject area, and
those specialising in similar subjects, either in the same
country or elsewhere
- joining e-mail discussion groups, such as ASIALIB (see
Section 6.9.4)
- searching the World Wide Web (see Section
6.7).
next: 7.9 Current awareness
services
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