A Review of Library Reference and Research Services

We are poised and prepared to help with your reference and research questions in the field of insurance. Often we are asked what the difference is between a reference question and research. While we've answered this question in several member newsletters over the years, we thought it would be good to discuss it one more time.

“Reference” inquiries are those which are readily answered and do not require us to set aside time beyond 15 minutes or so. They are generally quickly addressed through reference books or our journals index and–if we’re lucky–are questions we’ve answered for someone else before and remember! Most consumer questions would fall into this category, but a number of member questions are considered reference as well.

“Research” inquiries, on the other hand, are not so straightforward --these may involve somewhat arcane or historical subjects. Research is differentiated from reference by the scope or nature of the inquiry, the time required to do the work, and the intricacy of the subject. These requests require a librarian’s commitment of time and call for us to apply our thinking skills to formulate a plan of attack.

Any request being used for business purposes (as opposed to a consumer or student inquiry) by a non-member automatically incurs the research charge. On the other hand, library members may ask a variety of reference questions without incurring any charges beyond the normal document delivery fees. When we tip into the research mode, though, we charge members $80/hour and non-members $110/hour. An added benefit to membership is that research requests from members are completed before any non-member research is undertaken and they can pay the research fee after the work is completed, while non-members must pay up front.

We hope that this clears up some of the confusion regarding reference vs. research! For more information on other member benefits, you can go here.

Welcome to the Library

We thought it might be nice to start our first blog post ever with a virtual tour of the library. Because we're librarians though, and not videographers, this will be a low tech virtual tour. One of the membership benefits is acess to the library's conference and meeting rooms. While many members take advantage of this benefit, we wanted to be sure that all members were aware of it. This resource is especially useful for our members based outside of Boston who can use the library as a place to arrange meetings with clients and others when they are visting Boston.

The first stop on our tour is the Joseph Moore Room (it is sometimes also referred to as the A. M. Best Room Because of the number of Best publications housed there). The Joseph Moore Room is on the main floor of the library. Among other books, we keep in this room the NAIC Proceedings going back to the late 1800s, The Best Insurance Reports for Property Casualty and The Best Insurance Reports for Life Accident and Health both dating as far back as the early 1900s. This room also comfortably seats about six people at the table or ten including the surrounding area with a door that can be closed for more privacy.

Next up follow the beautiful spiral staircase down to the Board Room. This room has many of our historical publications including, Massachusetts Commissioners' Reports dating from the mid-1800's to the mid-1960's, bound journals, and other older reference materials. This room also has some beautiful fire insurance artifacts. On the walls are various fire marks (click here for more information on fire marks -- please note that this takes you away from our website and that we do not have a special relationship with/or necessarily endorse organizations that are linked to on this website) and we have plaques with firemen, along with a lovely three foot statue of a fireman. The board room sits twelve people around the large conference table very easily, but up to twenty people can be easily accomodated in this room including seating outside of the table.

Just off of the Board Room is the room often referred to as the Sanborn Map Room. The Library has a collection of Sanborn maps for all of New England. Our maps were last updated in the mid 1960's, but depending on the particular map they may be older or newer. Formerly, updates to the maps were done by gluing any changes over the older map. They are fascinating maps to examine and are used by fire insurers, architects, and surveyors, even today. The Sanborn Map Company is still in business, though they've updated their mapping techniques as technology has improved. The Map room can be used for small meetings: like the Joseph Moore Room above, it fits about six to ten people. Often, people will use the map room if they are having a catered lunch in the board room (though we do ask that people be extremely careful around the maps).

The Library occupies the basement, first and second floors at 156 State Street. The classrooms, where we offer our continuing education classes on site, are located across the hall, on the first floor, from the board room and in the basement. These rooms are also available for use by our membership if they are not already being used for classes. Below you can see two examples of the four rooms we have available. Each classroom has a white board, a screen for a projector and a podium. Depending on the classroom they can acommodate anywhere between fifteen and twenty people.

This concludes the tour of the library for today, but, hopefully, we will have many more posts in the future that will highlight what the library has to offer, both to the public and to the membership.