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ISSN 1039-3498 | no. 49| February 2001


Virtual reference: online questions and answers

The National Library of Australia has been answering questions from readers via the Internet since June 1994. Questions are asked through email or a web form. Our approaches to this new world are extending through the development of collaborative projects and also through new opportunities to discuss virtual reference at conferences.

In October Roxanne Missingham, Director, Reader Services, attended the second Virtual Reference Desk (VRD) Conference in Seattle. The conference provided a valuable opportunity for librarians, ‘ask-a’ services and IT developers to exchange ideas and discuss key issues in the delivery of online information services. Four major areas were discussed—the nature of services, information infrastructure required to operate services, software and service quality/standards. Many issues were very controversial—with most discussion focused on service quality. This area was represented at one end by ‘Ask Jeeves’, a service answering questions from an automated ‘knowledge base’ and at the other end ‘AskERIC’ providing personalised answers. Pennie Finney, from Ask Jeeves reminded the conference that any service answering 4.5 million questions per day, as Ask Jeeves does, cannot provide this service based on full personal answering systems.

What is virtual reference? At the conference presenters and delegates covered three different types of virtual reference services. These are:

E-mail reference services
These are the longest established and the National Library’s service, established some six years ago, is one of the oldest. Based on translating traditional written inquiries to a new environment, these services provide answers to the organisation’s designated client group using traditional reference library skills. Key developments in this area in public libraries and the ‘ask-a’ services were the move to a call-centre type approach with a fast turn around on questions, offering simple responses and referral to electronic resources. This is the basis for most collaborative projects such as the Library of Congress initiative Collaborative Digital Reference Service (CDRS).

Online/chat to the librarian reference requests
This is a new approach and has been trialed in a number of public and academic libraries. Chat room technology and telnet have not been successful, because of technical limitations and difficulty managing access to a bank of specialist reference librarians. Some of the projects found low uptake by clients; or experienced some technical difficulties. Research from Temple University, Philadelphia suggests this approach works well for short questions and as an initial access point. Software is being developed for online reference, with the Library Systems & Services (LSSI) at www.lssi.com/virtual/ and the Internet Public Library at www.ipl.org/ demonstrated at the conference. LSSI software is being implemented in the San Francisco Bay libraries, which service a large population and IPL has been installed in Canada and US libraries. This service can provide routing of questions in real time by subject strength. Issues of user demand, service models, business models and service quality are at an early stage.

Fully automated solutions based on answers from a knowledge base
Best represented by Ask Jeeves these services have a database of information that can be searched by the inquirer using key words for an immediate response via email containing the requested information. These services are often large-scale operations, facing challenges in terms of quality and relevance of response.

Some issues discussed at the conference included: assessing the quality of service; software set-up and options; partnerships with other libraries around the globe aiming for 24 hours a day 7 days a week provision of services; and options in business models to provide finance for online reference services. The conference papers will soon be online at www.vrd.org.

While in Seattle, Roxanne attended a meeting of the Collaborative Digital Reference Service. This project, initiated by the Library of Congress, brings libraries around the world together to share reference queries working towards 24 hours per day, 7 days per week access to reference services. If you email the National Library of Australia for information it may be referred online to US, Canada or Europe for specialist attention. Similarly if a question is asked of the Library of Congress or National Library of Canada or other partners it may be answered in Australia.

After extensive testing through 2000 this service is now being used for regular inquiries, sharing the knowledge and resources of partner libraries around the world. In 2001 the service will move to an online interface library patrons can use, offering even easier access. For more information go to www.loc.gov/rr/digiref/.
—Roxanne Missingham

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Please address any comments and enquiries to The Editor, Gateways: dthomas@nla.gov.au

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