Going Live: Starting and Running a Virtual Reference Service

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Overview

"If your customers don't sleep, why should your reference service? Online library reference services available 24/7 are offered in a growing number of institutions. With many models to choose from and more details to be worked out, it is a critical time for librarians to assess their patron's needs and market their services to address these needs." "Collecting and documenting what thousands of virtual reference librarians have learned over the past few years, this comprehensive guide provides a needed overview to help new and aspiring virtual
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Overview

"If your customers don't sleep, why should your reference service? Online library reference services available 24/7 are offered in a growing number of institutions. With many models to choose from and more details to be worked out, it is a critical time for librarians to assess their patron's needs and market their services to address these needs." "Collecting and documenting what thousands of virtual reference librarians have learned over the past few years, this comprehensive guide provides a needed overview to help new and aspiring virtual reference library departments - and their directors and administrators, reference librarians, and project managers - to understand the entire process and its ramifications. Here are the basics of designing, implementing, operating, and marketing a virtual reference service from the ground up." With a look into the costs, and a look into the future, supplemented with the most comprehensive bibliography available on the topic, Going Live is a one-stop resource for getting started in digital reference services.
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Editorial Reviews

Library Journal
For the last 100 years reference services had remained essentially unchanged until the advent of the Internet. Now, without the professional expertise of librarians, several dot-com companies like Ask Jeeves have tried to provide free and fee-based "Ask-a" services on the web. Librarians, alarmed at declining traditional reference desk statistics and facing competition from the web, are looking to recapture their place as information professionals by providing reference services in the form of live chat or virtual reference. Coffman, as a VP for product development at LSSI (Library Systems and Services, Inc.), helps libraries migrate their reference services to the web. With contributions by Michelle Flander, who manages the Web Reference Center at LSSI, and Kay Henshall, chief trainer for LSSI's Virtual Reference Toolkit, his book provides a comprehensive overview of live online reference services and the process for establishing them. The chapters cover what librarians will need to know to design, manage, market, and evaluate such programs. A final chapter takes a sober look at current and future reference services, virtual or otherwise. Appendixes include a detailed software feature checklist, a pre-employment aptitude test for virtual reference applicants used by LSSI for its Web Reference Center, and a bibliography contributed by Bernie Sloan, the first executive director of the Illinois Library Computer Systems Organization and a founder of ILLNet Online. Each new technological development in the library field brings an avalanche of books written about it. If you have already purchased a book on this topic, such as Mark Meola and Sam Stormont's Starting and Operating Live Virtual Reference Services (Professional Media, LJ 11/15/02), you may not need another. However, if you have been sitting back waiting for the dust to settle or are looking for a good companion to other virtual reference titles, you would not go wrong with this one.-Robert L. Battenfeld, Southampton Coll. Lib.-Long Island Univ., NY Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
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Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780838908501
  • Publisher: ALA Editions
  • Publication date: 5/28/2003
  • Pages: 196
  • Product dimensions: 6.00 (w) x 9.00 (h) x 0.45 (d)

Table of Contents

Preface
Ch. 1 Reference: The First One Hundred Years 1
Ch. 2 Getting Started: Designing Virtual Reference Systems 22
Ch. 3 Managing Virtual Reference Services 48
Ch. 4 Marketing Virtual Reference Services 73
Ch. 5 Where Do We Go from Here? 90
App. A Software Feature Checklist 107
App. B Sample Pre-employment Screening Test and Key 146
Virtual Reference Services Bibliography 157
Index 177
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