Real-Time Reference Service for the Remote User

Summary

Academic libraries now provide reference service for the remote user in at least two ways: by the telephone and by electronic mail. The remote user at a computer workstation, however, may not have access to a telephone and may be poorly served by the asynchronous nature of electronic mail. New technologies and collaborative software for serving remote users in real-time such as Internet chat, paging and instant messaging, whiteboard, application sharing, and audio and video conferencing offer new possibilities for remote access to reference services. In this article we review these technologies and report the results of a trial project at Temple University. The results are promising for real-time reference services.