| Abstract: | Summary The Internet Self-Managed Work Team of the Queens Borough Public Library surveyed a stratified random sample of public service librarians to determine their confidence levels of using electronic resources to answer reference questions. Two test groups were used to fine-tune the survey instrument, and a control group of non-public service librarians was used for comparison purposes. Questions were categorized into nine types, including Internet, Catalog, Telnet and Test. The results demonstrated high confidence levels in using the Library's Catalog and lower results in using the Internet. The lowest confidence levels were for questions dealing with personal computers and handling customer complaints about the Internet. Branch size, position, or rank of the respondent did not affect confidence levels in any predictable fashion. |
