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"Are You a Machine?": User Perceptions of Virtual Reference Services
Each year, more librarians embrace the Internet as an appropriate delivery medium for communicating with patrons, question answering, research assistance and instruction. As a result, the current body of virtual reference literature focuses primarily on administration and management issues, necessary skill sets, training and marketing plans, and technological considerations. This presentation examines how students think about online environments, and the place that virtual reference might have in that landscape are discussed. The design, placement and marketing of virtual reference services is also discussed.
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24/7 Instruction: Why Should Reference Get All the Fun?!
This presentation describes the outcome of a pilot project to provide synchronous instruction sessions to distance students taking online classes through Washington State University's Distance Degree Program. The sessions will be offered in conjunction with threaded discussions provided through the test classes' online courseware. The pilot project will use the "24/7 Reference" digital reference product, specifically its group meeting capability, to provide online classes for up to twenty students at a time. The classes will be taught through a mixture of chat, PowerPoint slides, and co-browsing library databases and the World Wide Web.
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Approaching Best Practices and Guidelines for Digital Reference: From Virtual to Real - Lessons Learned from the Library of Congress
In the past year, the Library of Congress has begun an in-depth examination of its reference policies, guidelines and best practices for digital reference. The Library of Congress has been engaged in "digital reference" since 1994 when we first started accepting email queries about the Library of Congress catalog. This presenttation examines how the implementation of new services and technology has highlighted the need to re-examine and revise existing guidelines and best practices.
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Back in the Saddle: Rethinking Reference Virtually
This presentation examines the integrated staffing model for providing real-time/chat reference service used by the Ferris State University Library for Information, Technology and Education (FLITE) as a means for improving overall efficiency in providing reference services. The presentation also discusses the implications of an emerging and considerable group of chat reference users, who utilize chat from within the library building itself, rather than off-campus locations as is often the expectation for chat reference services.
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Back in the Saddle: Rethinking Reference Virtually: Bibliography
A bibliography of selected resources on digital reference.
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Building a Knowledge Base: Justifications, Challenges, and the Library of Congress Experience
The theoretical justification for library efforts to build "knowledge bases" - searchable electronic archives of questions and answers - is unquestionably powerful. By allowing librarians to identify and use previous answers to respond to new questions, knowledge bases reduce question response time and duplicated effort. This presentation will highlight the issues and challenges the Library of Congress has encountered, and expects encounter in the future, as a builder of both a local and global knowledge base.
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Building Skills While Building Trust: Training for Virtual Reference
This handout focuses on what library staff in Washington State are learning from participating in the "Anytime, Anywhere Answers" virtual reference service, and what they are applying in their own libraries.
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Bull's-eye! Targeting Virtual Patrons
Washington's Statewide Virtual Reference Project, funded by LSTA and coordinated by the Washington State Library, focuses on the development of best practices, methods and standards for creating collaborative virtual reference services in all types of libraries. In a separate grant project, three libraries implemented a marketing program to promote the virtual reference service offered by an eastern Washington multi-type collaborative group. These projects produced significant results that, along with the current Statewide Marketing Initiative (a separate LSTA project), were then used to develop a marketing plan that will serve as an umbrella for virtual reference services across Washington.
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Digital Reference Services, Not Just Q and A: An Inclusive Examination of Digital Reference Services
This presentation examines the history of digital reference, including its positive and negative aspects. The presentation also looks at the future of digital reference, which may involve increased use of video, use of 3D virtual worlds, and employment of artificial intelligence capabilities to aid human reference providers.
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Digital Reference Services, Not Just Q and A: An Inclusive Examination of Digital Reference Services: Paper
This paper examines the history and impact of digital reference, including the functioning of bibliographic instruction, readers' advisory, and roaming reference in the digital environment. The positive implications of digital reference, including increased accessibility, convenience, control, privacy, and efficiency, as well as the negative implications of digital reference are also discussed.
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Dynamic Marketing to Targeted Markets
In the past, academic libraries have not wanted or needed to market their services – largely due to the lack of competition. Today these libraries live side by side with thriving information-providing options such as the Internet and fee-based research services. How does this change the role of academic libraries? This presentation shows tools for developing an effective, low-cost, targeted marketing plan and the results of such marketing in increasing the usage of a new virtual reference service.
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Economics of Digital Reference Services: Integration With Existing Cost and Impact Assessment Methods
As the sustainability of library services comes under increasing scrutiny, digital reference researchers and practitioners have begun to recognize the need for a deeper understanding of the economic characteristics of these services. In this presentation, a survey of economic analyses of libraries and library-related services is provided, followed by a draft framework for economic evaluation of digital reference services.
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Evaluation of Synchronous Digital Reference Services from an Information Architecture/User Experience Perspective: Design of a Study and Preliminary Results
Evaluation of digital reference services (DRS) remains a challenge for librarians attempting to justify the allocation of resources to such efforts. Many factors may impact the success of DRS, including the architecture of the web site through which DRS are offered. This presentation looks at the practice and theory of evaluation of DRS, and DRS web site architecture.
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Gearing up for NetRef
This presentation provides an update on the work of NISO Committee AZ for Networked Reference Services and a discussion focussed on implementation of the new Question and Answer Transaction Protocol (QATP).
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If You Ask Me, I Will Tell You! Students Reveal their Thoughts on Virtual Reference
30 students at the University of North Texas (UNT) were asked about their thoughts on and preferences for virtual reference using a modified focus group structure. This presentation examines the results from the focus group. Differences among undergraduate students, graduate students and online learning experience are highlighted.
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In Synch? Evaluating Chat Reference Transcripts
Evaluating chat reference service poses new challenges for practitioners and researcher alike and quality standards are evolving. How are we to know how effective these services are? How do we maintain established standards? How do we measure success? This presentation examines these questions.
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In Synch? Evaluating Chat Reference Transcripts: Bibliography
Bibliography of virtual reference resources, with particular emphasis on evaluation of virtual reference services and the reference interview.
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In Synch? Evaluating Chat Reference Transcripts: Librarian Categories
This handout describes the relational barriers and facilitators offered by librarians in virtual reference transactions.
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In Synch? Evaluating Chat Reference Transcripts: User Categories
Handout describing relational facilitators and barriers in virtual reference transactions.
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Integrating Information Literacy Issues into Virtual Reference Services
The purpose of this presentation is to develop an understanding of the connection between information literacy and virtual reference services in public libraries. Based on constructivist learning theory, this presentation takes a user-centered perspective on the definition of virtual reference services in which the emphasis is on user support.
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