Contents: Preface. 1. Reference practice. 2. Economics of reference service. 3. Marketing reference services. 4. User studies in the humanities. 5. Information seeking patterns : social sciences. 6. Scientists, information seeking and reference services. 7. Library services for persons with disabilities. 8. Ethnicity and information seeking. 9. Knowledge gap, information-seeking and the poor. 10. Reference services for older adults. 11. Using output measures to monitor children's use of reference services. 12. Women library users and library users of traditional women's subjects. 13. An option for meeting the information needs of the business community. 14. The new avenues for reference librarians and education. 15. Reference accuracy. Index.

    From the Preface: "The book looks into the philosophy of reference service, its various practices, economics and marketing alongwith the specific type of reference services to the various groups of users like disabled, old people, children, women etc. The book has a mention of reference services to the business communities with greater accuracy and promptness. A chapter has been devoted to users behaviour and information seeking behaviour of them in libraries.

    This book Reference Services in Libraries is a comprehensive book for the students and librarians to look into the theory and practice of reference services in the libraries."