Reducing Failures in Reference Service.

Despite the number of unobtrusive tests reported, the per centage of queries that reference librarians answer cor rectly is still not known because the test queries used are not acceptable samples of questions that reference librari ans must answer. Furthermore, unobtrusive testing is not a suitable method of identifying weak areas of reference service for the purpose of eliminating those weak areas. Reference librarians are aware of failing to provide the cor rect answers in many instances. It is argued that close monitoring of these known failures followed by corrective action is more likely to result in improved reference service than episodic testing.