Best Practices in Chat Reference Used by Florida's Ask a Librarian Virtual Reference Librarians

Chat reference has presented a unique set of problems for reference librarians. Lacking the visual and auditory cues of face-to-face or telephone reference interactions, librarians providing service for the virtual desk have developed digital techniques and resourceful maneuvers to help them navigate this new frontier. Still, many chat librarians find it difficult to conduct a meaningful transaction using just words, software components, and a mastery of online resources. Technical and communication problems further complicate their efforts. However, virtual reference librarians are rising to the occasion and engaging in exemplary chat transactions that conform to the highest standards of service.     

Talkback telephone network. Techniques of providing library continuing education

Four lectures on solving medical reference requests were given over a talkback telephone teleconference network which links 110 hospitals throughout the state. Participants in the course were librarians in nonurban public libraries, systems libraries, and small hospital libraries. Professional librarians as well as library personnel with little training took the course. Techniques were developed for providing continuing education over this telephone network to individuals located in remote areas. These techniques are described including analysis of their advantages and disadvantages.     

Reference for the Remote User Through Embedded Librarianship

Embedded librarians serve an important role in assisting remote users. Despite the varying degrees of embeddedness, all maintain the goal of ensuring the same high-quality reference and instruction services that users have come to expect from the traditional library setting. Embedded librarians select and use technology that most effectively meets the needs of this unique user group. This technology can include the library Web site, course management systems, research guides, lecture and screen capture software, remote reference (including telephone, chat, and email), web conferencing, online survey tools, citation management, and social media.     

SMS Text Reference Comes of Age: The My Info Quest Collaborative

The advent of the nationwide My Info Quest text message reference collaborative not only helped propel United States libraries' use of telephone text messaging to a new standing, it also demonstrated the effectiveness of a nationwide non-hierarchical librarian collective built on an organic foundation of radical trust. Much of the collaborative's development parallels similarly probing steps taken years earlier by instant messaging reference librarians, albeit with profound organizational differences. This article reports on important contrasts and commonalities with earlier services and describes some of the day-to-day workings of My Info Quest during its 2009–2010 pilot phase.     

Government Periodicals and the Reference Librarian:

Government publications in serial form provide timely, authoritative information on a range of subjects but reference librarians are not always aware of what is available in these sources. In libraries with separate documents departments, reference staffs may abrogate all responsibility for government publications, relying upon commercial sources to fill information needs more appropriately met with government periodicals. Documents librarians and reference librarians can facilitate the incorporation of govemment information in serial form into the general reference process. Benefits will include improved service to library patrons and an expanded user base to support the continued publication and distribution of government periodicals.     

Book selection responsibilities for the reference librarian: professional benefit or burden?☆

Full-time bibliographers are not common in smaller and medium sized academic libraries. In this setting, reference librarians typically serve as selectors of books and other library material. However, reference librarians for the most part are hired to perform public service duties revolving around a busy reference desk. In the past few years, additional responsibilities have been added to the reference librarians’ workload, making it difficult to perform collection development duties. Acquisitions and collection development librarians are frequently frustrated at how reference librarians seemingly put off or defer their collection development responsibilities. However, there are ways to utilize reference librarians in a collection development team and help them become effective part-time bibliographers.     

The Effect of Information Brokers on Reference Services:

Twenty-four public and academic reference librarians were surveyed for the purpose of obtaining information about the services if any, that they currently provide for information brokers, the appropriateness of providing reference services for those who market the information obtained, and whether or not reference departments of public and academic libraries should provide competing fee based reference services. Few public or academic librarians objected to providing reference services for information brokers. Academic reference librarians expressed the view that service should not interfere with services for their primary clientele. Public reference librarians generally held the opinion that their services should be available to all and had already been provided for with public funds. Both public and academic reference librarians expressed concern about qualifications of some commercial suppliers of information as this effected their relationship with them. Public reference librarians were of the opinion that information brokers did not compete with the library and the library should be hesitant about providing fee based reference services. Academic reference librarians were divided in their opinoins about the latter.     

HIV/AIDS Internet resources: a selective guide

With so many options available for answering questions on the network, this guide is intended as a subject-specific tool for reference librarians to use when assisting patrons in retrieving AIDS-related information. It focuses on the major electronic sites, resources, listservs, online journals, and databases on HIV/AIDS that are available free of charge on the network, listed in alphabetical order. The Internet is constantly evolving, and while the resources in this guide have been carefully examined online for content and accuracy, files and sites are continuously being eliminated, added, and updated. Users, therefore, are encouraged to be flexible and adaptable when browsing, and to try new modes of access on the network.     

The impact of COVID-19 on reference services: a national survey of academic health sciences librarians

Objectives:The aim of this study was to gain a better understanding of the scope and adaptive nature of reference services provided by academic health sciences librarians over a one-year period (between March 2020 and March 2021) during the COVID-19 pandemic.Methods:In March 2021, academic health sciences librarians in the United States were invited to participate in an anonymous online survey about their experiences providing reference services during the COVID-19 pandemic. The online survey was developed, pretested, and distributed to various listservs.Results:A total of 205 academic health sciences librarians and other information professionals with health sciences liaison responsibilities in the US (N=205) responded to the online survey. The scope of reference services provided during the COVID-19 pandemic included email-based reference services (97%), virtual reference (89%), telephone (80%), text-based (33%), and in-person (31%). The most common types of COVID-related reference questions included COVID-19 treatments (53%), safety precautions (46%), vaccines (41%), and prevalence (38%). Additionally, the identification of challenging reference questions and examples of misinformation were provided by respondents.Conclusions:The results of the survey characterize the evolving nature and scope of academic health sciences reference work during the COVID-19 pandemic. Librarians reported an increase in reference questions during the pandemic and are answering them in creative ways despite barriers (e.g., limited time and reduction in resources). There is an opportunity for librarians to continue to address COVID-related misinformation. Overall, these findings provide useful insight for library practitioners and administrators planning reference services during public health crises.     

The Serials Librarian and the Reference Department:

Reference librarians are persons who deal with users directly, providing services which cover a wide range of subjects and formals. Sometimes these librarians have subject expertise or are strong in certain areas. Serials librarians are also providing services to users but the nature of their contribution is sometimes overlooked, often misunderstood. The serials librarian can provide a useful link to the world of periodicals, journals, directories and other reference sources because he or she is familiar with the types of materials available, the treatment of serials, and the problems which are posed by this format's complexity. This paper presents the role of the serials librarian not only as a technical services professional, but also as a valuable associate to reference and public services. The main purpose of this discussion is to describe ways in which both reference and serials librarians can work together toward the ultimate goal of providing quality patron service.     

Adding Value at the Desk: How Technology and User Expectations are Changing Reference Work

The notion of what reference service ought to be continues to change as technology provides new ways to interact with users and alters their expectations of the library and librarians. As new tools for interaction become available, it is critical that librarians continuously evaluate their effectiveness at providing users with a valuable service that meets the needs of the community being served. By assessing tools and techniques in light of user expectations and satisfaction, librarians can come up with unique service programs that also incorporate their own knowledge and interpersonal skills.     

Gopher Searching Using VERONICA

VERONICA stands for Very Easy Rodent-Oriented Net-Wide Index to Computerized Archives and is a service that allows users to search all menu levels of gopher sites. The development of such a tool became necessary to enable users to search for resources on the gopher sites without having to go to each site individually and search each menu level. This article will explain how to access the service and perform searches. How to read search results, look for strings in specific documents and download desired documents will also be explained. Examples of potential questions will illustrate these various procedures. While VERONICA can be used effectively by librarians to answer reference questions, many professionals in the field are somewhat daunted by this very powerful and relatively new reference tool. Examining reference questions that can be answered using VERONICA will shed some light on its effectiveness, thus giving librarians a better sense of how VERONICA fits into the overall reference process.     

Joy Is Bustin' Out All Over

When the American Library Association's Reference and Adult Services Division adopted "Information Services for Information Consumers: Guidelines for Providers" in June of 1990, it set the positive tone that reference work can and should have throughout the decade and beyond. Efforts by corporations to promote end-user online services, consumer-oriented CD-ROMs, and the like constitute an attempt to recreate the library. These attempts are, however, inherently flawed in that, unlike the library, they do not marshal the wide variety of information resources - print, online, CD-ROM, audio-visual, etc. - that libraries routinely make available. "Information Services or Information Consumers: Guidelines for Providers" challenges information providers (i.e., libraries and reference librarians) to take full advantage of new information and communications technology to make not only the services marketed to end users useful to library patrons, but to realize more fully the potential of the rich resources already concentrated in libraries. The guidelines offer reference librarians and library administrators and governing boards a vision of a comprehensive information service centered in and delivered by the library to the members of the community it is intended to serve. They also challenge reference librarians, library administrators, and governing boards to make that vision a reality. This will require creativity, entail some risks, and depend for its success upon the quality of the resources allocated to the task. The most important variable will be the quality of the front-line reference librarians and their commitment to that vision and the spirit of the guidelines.     

Confessions of a Reference Technophile

The argument that mediated online ready reference searching is an indispensable service is presented. The proliferation of Internet resources, including electronic journals, online catalogs, and other resources creates new user expectations and demands on reference service points. While end-user searching makes sense when a common interface for a multitude of diverse databases is provided, the contemporary version of remote access challenges searchers to tackle nearly every type of vendor product available as well as several homegrown varieties. Until "intelligent systems" can span the diversity of available online systems, librarians may once again find themselves in the role of search mediator that was common when online databases were first introduced while the task of keeping reference librarians apprised of developing electronic resources is formidable, end-user instruction is even more so. Because the diversity of online systems makes it impractical to know each system in very much detail, reference librarians will need to concentrate on developing a better conceptual framework.     

The Attitudes of Academic Reference Librarians Toward Information Brokers

This study describes a questionnaire survey of reference librarians working at the eighty-nine academic ARL (Association for Research Libraries) member institutions in the United States. The survey was conducted to determine the extent to which information brokers use the materials available in academic reference departments, the types of sources which are consulted, and the nature of the relationship between librarians and information brokers. The data colelcted in the present study indicate that none of the personal and professional conflicts between information brokers and reference librarians that were reported in the library literature during the first half of the 1970s is either widespread or serious. Possible explanation for the change include: (1) an increased professionalism characterizing brokers; (2) the attrition of the less competent brokers; and (3) the establishment and clarification of a role for commercial providers of information which is separate from and not threatening to that of librarians.     

Humanities Reference Librarians in the Electronic Age

Abstract

Humanists build new ideas and arguments based upon studies done in the past. Although research requires these scholars to pick through the literature that has come before, much has been lost because of the lack of adequate comprehensive reference tools. In the age of technology, new projects are available which enhance and enlarge the body of work upon which future scholars can build. For reference librarians helping with research questions in the humanities, the marriage of traditional reference tools and new on-line resources means a richer cumulation of past scholarship. In this paper, I will discuss strategies for academic humanities reference librarians to integrate traditional and electronic reference resources, and the need to continue learning the skills to use both. Humanities reference librarians must continue the great humanist tradition of building new ideas upon older foundations by successfully acquiring and using both new and old reference resources.     

Supporting User Needs and Skills to Minimize Library Anxiety:

Academic reference and instruction librarians are commited to providing excellent and appropriate service to their library users. However, the increasing diversity of users in today's academic libraries, coupled with the overwhelming amount of information available in a variety of formats, often form barriers which prevent users from feeling sufficiently comfortable in approaching the reference desk to ask for assistance. Guidelines are suggested for use by academic librarians in evaluating facilities, services and staff in their libraries to assess their effectiveness in welcoming users and validating their information needs.