Our Reference department is happy to help with any research questions that librarians or patrons have. We understand that librarians at small and rural libraries often don't have the time or resources to help patrons with in depth research. We are glad to offer our support with this, whether you want to refer the patron directly to us or ask us the question yourselves. We routinely provide help with questions about state services, local government, Maine history, or more general research. If we can't find you an answer within the library, we will do our utmost to refer you someone who can help.
The reference librarians at the State Library also are responsible for selection for the collection and welcome suggestions from librarians, particularly as regards to local writers.
The reference desk is staffed 9am - 5pm, Monday through Friday and the email and phone are actively monitored, we welcome your calls or emails.
Reference Department Staff:
Kelli Burnham
B.J. Jamieson
Jeffrey Knox
Melanie Mohney
Subject/Title research:
When your patrons aren’t looking for a specific title, but have a more general request like ‘Spanish language books for fourth graders’ or ‘books about African Americans in Maine’, we can help provide a list of appropriate titles or work directly with the patron to find what they are looking for and help get the books ordered via interlibrary loan.
Journal Article Requests:
Many times, we can help find access to journal articles without having to go through interlibrary loan. If we can’t find it, we can put the ILL request through for you and save you a bit of time.
The reference librarians at the Maine State Library evaluate and select materials for the library's professional development collection. The collection contains a comprehensive range of books to assist librarians in all types of job roles. It includes books on administration and human resources, boards and trustees, programming, collection development, developing community relations, promoting your library, writing grants and more.
If there is a particular title that you are looking for, but can't find, don't hesitate to get in touch with the reference librarians to suggest it.
Titles in the Professional Development Collection can be searched in URSUS.
