4 : Providing electronic reference services

[telephone, email, aska librarian, forms, ICQ, chat, evaluation]

Email reference

Email services are common in the UK higher education, but not usually marketed in the Aska format found in the US and few use specialist software.

They may be associated with Frequently Asked Question lists, as with Northumbria University's EARS service and the NERD service at the neighbouring Newcastle University.

In the UK public library sector the collaborative service developed by the now-defunct EARL organisation is now known as Ask a librarian.

The book mentions the OPAL project at the Open University that is looking at an automated enquiry answering service. This development has recently [Payne] been put into the broader context of online reference services and the activities investigating enquirer behaviour and enquiry patterns have been described. Enquiries were seen to fall into three main groups: subject; resource and services; and access. These will form the core of the OPAL system.

Chat

Chat references services have been used only experimentally in the UK, notably by Leicester University for their distance learners.[McGill] There HumanClick software was used and valuable experience on the benefits and problems was gained. Decisions on moving to a general service have yet to be made.

Leicester also maintains a list of links to chat services and articles.

Reference

McGill, L. Global chat: Web based enquiries at the University of Leicester. Libraries without Walls 4: The Delivery of Library Services to Distant Users: Distributed Resources - Distributed Learning International Conference, Lesvos, Greece, September 2001
see also chapter 4 of Brophy, Fisher and Clark (eds), Libraries Without Walls, Facet Publishing, 2002.

Payne, G.F. & Bradbury, D. An automated approach to online digital reference: the Open University OPAL Project Program 36 (1) 2002, 5-12