Dorothea describes conflict between tech services and public services librarians. She's probably right that it's there to some extent, but I'm happy to say that I've never felt that conflict, either in the iSchool or at KCLS. But now that I think about it, this quarter Trent, my cataloging instructor, made a comment about Mr. Reference
that kind of hints at differences of opinion.
It's also true that I've spent very little time with reference librarians in KCLS and more with the cataloging department.
On the other hand, although I'm heavily involved right now with the systems end of library service, one part of my job constitutes responding to patrons who send feedback messages via a form that's linked from the web catalog. When patrons can't find something that's actually in the catalog, I tell them how. If they didn't find it because it's not there, I forward it to ILL/selection. If a patron's query is more complex than a known-item search, I recommend that they consult a reference librarian. Reference librarians have no reason to fear for their jobs because of automated catalogs and databases—trust me, I've seen the inside of them, and they're not that amazing. And as we concluded in LIS 520 last fall, the supply of clueless users is infinite.
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