Telephone & Reference Unit at the Hawaii State Library

• Oahu: 586-3621
• Neighbor Islands: 1-800-390-3611

Staff members may ask you a number of questions as part of the reference interview to make sure that they fully understand what you are looking for. Here are some suggestions to make the interview most productive:

• Be specific: Ask for The Incident at Roswell rather than the books on UFOs. Ask for the books on cane toads rather than the animal books.

• If staff members are unfamiliar with some of the terms you are using, be willing to define them or use alternate terms. Show them some of the documents or materials which you have already located and provide the context of your search request.

• Tell the staff member where you have already checked: PAC, an online magazine database, the circulating automotive manual collection, etc.

• Start with your local library. Please do not phone a large library and ask staff to retrieve books from the stacks and only then ask whether they are available at your local library. Call or visit your local library first.

• If the material is not available there, the staff will help you find out where copies are located via PAC and will place an online hold for you so that the material will be sent to your local library for pickup.

• If you need the material immediately, the staff will assist you by having circulating material held under your name at another library. Do not go to another library without phoning first. The "on shelf" status doesn't necessarily mean that the item is on the shelf -- it actually means that the item is not on loan, not being held for anyone, not in transit, not overdue, etc. The item may be in use in the library, it may not yet be re-shelved, or sadly it may be missing.

• Information from a reference book can be faxed to your home or office in Hawaii at a charge of $2.50 per page, if there are no copyright restrictions. Customers may request that copies be made at a cost of $ .25 per page if copyright laws permit the reproduction and if the copies are picked up at the library. Customers may request that copies be mailed to any site in Hawaii for an additional $1.00 per page. See the section on fees for more information.

• If you would like to obtain an item from a library outside the Hawaii State Public Library System, inquire about interlibrary loan service. Please ask a staff member for assistance and fee information.

• If you would like to suggest that the library system purchase a new book or other kinds of library material, contact a staff member and ask for a new book request form. Please provide as much information as possible such as title, author, and how you learned about the item -- saw it in the bookstore, author was on a talk show, read about it in the latest issue of Time, etc.

Beginning FY96, materials selection responsibility was outsourced to a commercial vendor. Beginning October 1997, library staff regained the responsibility of building their collections. Although the budgets are much smaller, they will do everything possible to insure that requested material is considered for purchase.

• You may also use our E-Reference form to seek assistance for your question or research.