Online, Virtual, E-mail, Digital, Real Time: The Next Generation of Reference ServicesAuthor(s): Joan StahlSource: Art Documentation: Journal of the Art Libraries Society of North America, Vol. 20,No. 1 (Spring 2001), pp. 26-30Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of the Art Libraries Society of NorthAmericaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27949121 .

Accessed: 15/06/2014 14:04

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

.

The University of Chicago Press and Art Libraries Society of North America are collaborating with JSTOR todigitize, preserve and extend access to Art Documentation: Journal of the Art Libraries Society of NorthAmerica.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 185.44.79.179 on Sun, 15 Jun 2014 14:04:08 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

FEATURE

Online, Virtual, E-mail, Digital, Real Time: The Next Generation of Reference Services_ by Joan Stahl, Smithsonian American Art Museum and Diane Nester Kresh, Library of Congress

Rapid developments in technology have set in motion a rev olution in the way in which librarians deliver reference services. The remarkable growth of Web resources (combined with

greater and easier access to the Internet by citizens throughout the world) has resulted in decreasing reference statistics (walk in, telephone, and mail) for most libraries throughout the

country and a prediction, prevalent in the professional literature, that the profession of librarianship is obsolete. Yet, as the Internet expands and grows more complex, librarians are in a

unique position to use their expertise and training, and assist users in identifying and locating information they seek.

A review of some statistics demonstrates how prevalent is the use of the Internet and how broad-based are its users:

The number of users of the Internet is expected to grow by 25% each year.

Personal use of the Internet averaged 27 hours per year in 1997. It is expected to climb to 192 hours a year in 2003.

The Web has more than 3.6 million sites and the average life of a Web site is seventy days.

30% of Internet users have personalized Web pages.

Teenagers and children constitute the fastest growing pop ulation of Internet users.

Any 2 WWW pages are only 19 clicks from each other.

The total search engine coverage of the Internet is 42% with no single search engine indexing more than about 16-18% of the Internet.

By 2003, non-English language material will account for over half the content.

E-mail is emerging as the communications tool of choice; more than 300 million e-mails are sent each day in the United States alone.1

Recent investigations of the Internet and its use have focused increasingly on the "invisible" or "deep" Internet and reveal that significant portions of the Internet are hidden to most users. One recent study by BrightPlanet, an Internet Content

Company, concluded:

More than half of the deep Web content resides in topic specific databases.

The deep Web is the largest growing category of new infor mation on the Internet.

Public information on the deep Web is currently 400 to 550 times larger than the commonly defined World Wide Web.2

The emergence of technology has significantly affected the core mission of a library and at the same time created many new

opportunities for librarians, information managers, researchers and library patrons of all kind. Because today's researchers need to find quickly information that is usable, relevant, authoritative and verifiable, libraries and librarians must adapt traditional

strengths of acquiring, describing, and serving information to the virtual library that is not bound by time or physical place.

So how do we take the reference desk to cyberspace?3

Pioneers in the Delivery of Online Reference The challenge of taking the library reference desk to cyber

space was first embraced by entrepreneurial spirits, who were

quick to recognize the potential of the Internet for the delivery of information. From the library community, the University of

Maryland Health Services Library in Baltimore led the way, when they launched Electronic Access to Reference Services (EARS) in 1984. But initial e-mail-based digital reference efforts received little attention from patrons.4

Six years later, in 1992, the U. S. Department of Education

began to explore the potential of online reference with the cre ation of AskERIC, a personalized Internet-based service

providing education information to teachers, librarians, coun

selors, administrators, parents, and others throughout the

United States and the world. AskERIC has three components:

a) AskERIC Q&A Service: Anyone needing information on the theory or practice of education can send a message to the AskERIC Q&A Service, and information specialists, drawing on the vast resources and expertise of the ERIC

System, will respond.

b) AskERIC Virtual Library: Selected education resources:

topical guides, lesson plans, etc.

c) AskERIC Research and Development: To investigate edu cational use of high technology and high-performance networking.5

The success of AskERIC was complemented by the cre ation of additional related projects under the auspices of the U. S. Department of Education, including:

26 Art Documentotion ? Volume 20, Number 1 ? 2001

This content downloaded from 185.44.79.179 on Sun, 15 Jun 2014 14:04:08 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

a) KidsConnect: An AskERIC-type program for K-12

(now a project of the American Association of School Librarians, American Library Association)

[http://www.ala.org/ICONN/kidsconn.html]

b) Virtual Reference Desk Project (VRD): Begun in 1997, with

support from the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, VRD identifies

existing digital reference services and their processes. In 1998, VRD introduced "The Dig_Ref Listserv"

[http://www.vrd.org/Dig Ref/dig ref.html] which con tinues to be the primary discussion group on the subjects of online reference services.

Between 1993 and 1995 other question and answer services

appeared, the majority from outside the library community. Known as "Ask-an-Expert" (or AskA, for short) and qualifying their services as "online," "virtual," and "e-mail" reference, the

following list, while not exhaustive, serves to highlight a range of the earliest experts, presentations, and resources:

Ask Shamu (Sea World/Bush Gardens experts) http://www.seaworld.org/ask shamu/asintro.html

Ask Dr. Math (Math Forum, Swarthmore College) http: //forum.swarthmore.edu/dr.math/

Mad Scientist Network (Washington University School of

Medicine, St. Louis)

http: / / madsci.wustl.edu/

Joan of Art (aka Smithsonian American Art Museum Reference Desk)

http://www.nmaa.si.edu/referencedesk/

Ask Dr. Universe (Washington State University) http: //www.wsu.edu/DrUniverse/

Perhaps the most widely known service today is the Internet Public Library (IPL), created in 1995. IPL was the brainchild of

Joe Janes, an assistant professor at the School of Information Studies at the University of Michigan (now teaching at the

University of Washington), and its creation was the class project for "Information Technology, Impacts and Implications," a grad uate-level survey course.

Janes wanted to [further] explore the merger of network

ing and libraries by planning, building, and running a digital library on the Internet based on the public-library model. His

idea was that he could do more than just replicate the func

tions and processes of a real public library, or add to the long lists of digital resources that were then available on the

Internet?resources that had little intellectual control or input from the library community. He wanted to create a hybrid that

combined the strengths of both public libraries and the lists of links that attempted to categorize Internet resources...6

The IPL has grown by leaps and bounds and is a premier site. In the recent past, interest in digital reference in the library

community has greatly increased as evidenced by a few mile stones. For example, in 1998, VRD held its first stakeholders'

meetings with approximately thirty attendees, representing AskA services and technical advisers. The first annual confer ence sponsored by this group took place in Cambridge,

Massachusetts in 1999 and attracted approximately 200 atten

Commerdd Q & A Services: A Selected List

AskJeeves Kasamba

# About

abuzz

AllExperts/ Artswers.com

Pitsco's Ask an Expert 4 AskMe

deja.com eHow

EXP

ExpertCentral experts exchange Fact City InfoRocket

Keen

KnowPost

LivePerson

LookSmart

Webhelp

http:// www.askjeeves.com

http: / / www.kasamba.com/

http: //www.about.com

http: //www.abuzz.com

http://www.allexperts.com

http://www.askanexpert.com

http://www.askme.com/

http: / / www.deja.com

http: / / www.ehow.com

http: / / www.exp.com/

http: / / www.expertcentral.com/

http://www.experts-exchange.com/

http://www.factcity.com/

http: //www.inforocket.com

http://www.keen.com/web/

http: //www.knowpost.com/

http: //www.liveperson.com

http://www.looksmart.com/

http: //www, webhelp.com

dees, split between AskA services and libraries. The second annual conference, in Seattle, Washington in 2000, attracted more than 500 information professionals from the United States, Canada, Australia, Sweden, Denmark, Hong Kong, and Japan and librarians were in the majority. Also, in June, 1998, the

Library of Congress, under the direction of Diane Kresh and Linda Arret, organized the first national library-based institute on the subject, "Reference Service in a Digital Age" (which had been preceded by an American Library Association Midwinter

Meeting, in January of that year). The institute drew 130 profes sionals, representing twenty-five states, the District of Columbia, Brazil, Canada, and Turkey. The papers presented, (a selection of which appear in Reference and User Services Quarterly 38, no. 1) illustrated that perceptions of "digital reference" varied greatly

within the profession. Participants spoke of "digital collections,"

"digital librarians," "e-mail reference," "AskAs" and "commercial

vs. library services," without sharing common understanding of

the terminology. While Ask-an-Expert sites were logging impressive statis

tics?in 1999, AskERIC Q&A was getting 1000 queries/ week?the library community was still hesitant to commit. In a

widely read article, David A. Tyckoson, head of reference at the

Henry Madden Library at California State University, Fresno,

pronounced e-mail reference a failure: "In practice, email refer

ence service is far from adequate. Despite all of our publicity and

promotion, patrons simply do not use it."7

Challenges of Delivery Tyckoson's remarks reflected a widespread opinion.

Traditional reference does not translate seamlessly into "digital reference" and librarians confront many challenges. The domi nant challenges are: a) software; b) 24/7 service; and c) resource

Volume 20, Number 1 ? 2001 ? Art Documentotion 27

This content downloaded from 185.44.79.179 on Sun, 15 Jun 2014 14:04:08 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

sharing. In regard to software, since none exists that is specifi

cally designed for digital reference or can successfully replicate the processes of a reference interview, reference search, and

response that take place daily at a reference desk, those informa tion providers that became involved were left to their own creative devices. With organizational support, some invested in off-the-shelf software that could be adapted to this purpose, while others designed proprietary software. For those institu tions with limited financial and technical resources, software

options were confusing and few in number. With increased usage of the Internet, library patrons began

to develop different expectations. Access to the Internet was not limited by physical place or time, so it was no surprise that Internet users expected to locate information quickly at any time of the day (what is called 24/7). How can libraries that are staffed only when the library is open for business begin to com

pete with a myriad of commercial and non-commercial information providers who provide information around-the

clock? Does the creation of digital library collections begin to address the problem? Are different staffing patterns warranted and can they be supported?

Concerning resource-sharing, several pioneers in digital ref

erence have pointed out that while libraries have complex networks for sharing bibliographic resources, such as interli

brary loan and shared cataloging, nothing comparable exists for

sharing reference searches. Librarians throughout the country daily answer the same or similar questions, but we have no sys tem in place that begins to address the duplication of effort that is taking place. How best can we capture, catalog, and share the reference work that goes on in libraries throughout the world?

Early discussions of the subject have focused on the need to build a "Knowledgebase" and the need to classify questions and answers so they can be retrievable. But these wide-ranging dis

cussions are in their infancy.

Commercial Services In Fall 1999, entrepreneurs in the commercial world awak

ened to the adage with which librarians have been familiar for some time, "Information is Power." Information providers sup

ply a desired commodity, such as perceived expertise or quick turn-around time, that adds value to the information provided. Therein lay a marketing opportunity that quickly was exploited. Almost overnight, a number of commercial question-and answer services came into being. Each follows a slightly different model with three dominant scenarios:

1. The user submits a question that is automatically "matched" to a Knowledgebase; a sampling of appropriate and related questions and answers is returned to the user.

2. A user submits a question to an expert on the subject and the user and expert negotiate the cost of the search and

delivery of information.

3. Users post questions to a public bulletin board and mem

bers/self-identified experts respond or not.

To a large extent, these commercial concerns are trying to

replicate what happens at library reference desks. According to a recent New York Times article, "Suddenly Everybody's an Expert" (February 3,2000), "an expert, it seems, is now an ordinary person

sitting at home, beaming advice over the Internet to anyone who wants help." The founders of these sites argue that they are pro viding the missing link to millions of pages of information. What Internet users need, they say, is human intervention to locate answers that are fast, personalized, easy to find, and free, at least

for the time being. Of course, what they are describing sounds a lot like what happens in a library.8 Providers are attempting to re

package and format the processes of reference interviews, searches, and answers by taking advantage of all technology can offer and marketing their service as personal and fun.

Articles and listserv discussions have debated the quality of answers provided, and questioned whether patrons are satisfied with the responses. Much of the discussion has been based on anecdotal evidence, but research is currently being done on the

accuracy and effectiveness of these "expert" services, and the

findings, reflecting mixed reviews for the most part, are being published in library literature. The Library of Congress and the

University of Washington have undertaken their own study of AskA Services and the findings will be made available in the next several months. Regardless of the analysis, most librarians will agree that these services have been quite effective in their

marketing efforts. Many people are more familiar with Ask

Jeeves, for example, than with their local library. Library refer ence statistics are meager, in comparison with the statistics of both commercial services and non-profit AskAs. Ask Jeeves reports receiving twenty million questions per day and to date has provided more than 150 million answers.9

It remains to be seen if these commercial services are finan

cially viable on the Internet. The latest reports indicate that one "dot.com" Web site fails each day and several have come into and out of existence within the past year. It also remains to be seen if these services are direct competition for library reference ser vices or complementary enterprises that will bring users back to libraries and serve as the basis for more public-private partner ships. For now, librarians can learn by investigating the variety of Question and Answer services.

Collaborative Projects To some degree, information professionals are actively

working on each of the challenges to delivery that were cited here. Innovative projects, designed to resolve problems in the

delivery of digital reference services, are promising. The largest and most ambitious effort, launched by the

Library of Congress and more than forty partners representing public, academic, national, and special libraries around the world, is the Collaborative Digital Reference Service (CDRS). By linking libraries together for reference services, the CDRS aims to combine the strengths of local collections and staff with the

diversity and availability of libraries and librarians everywhere, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. A librarian will be available to provide to users located anywhere trained assistance in providing access to collections and resources both analog and

digital.10 CDRS builds upon the groundbreaking work of the

Library of Congress American Memory Project (1990) and National Digital Library (1995). Both initiatives supply content in the form of digital collections of unique materials. CDRS extends the concept by examining ways in which the content becomes usable and searchable.

28 Art Documentotion ? Volume 20, Number 1 ? 2001

This content downloaded from 185.44.79.179 on Sun, 15 Jun 2014 14:04:08 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Although the goal is to reach any researcher anywhere, CDRS has begun with librarians talking to other librarians on

behalf of end users. The parameters of the service then can be defined and participants can work to determine what works and what does not work, thereby creating a service that is scalable and maximally responsive to user needs:

As envisioned, CDRS includes three component parts:

set-up, submission of question and answer, and follow-up and

archiving of the answer for future use. The workflow will look

like this: An end user will request information through a CDRS member institution. The member institution will send the

query to the online Request Manager software for processing and routing. The Request Manager will then search a database

of CDRS Member institution profiles looking for the member institution best suited to answer the question. Matches will be

made on the basis of such data elements as hours of service,

including time zones, subject strengths, scope of collections,

types of patrons served, etc. The "match making" will happen in milliseconds. Once a match on an institution has been made,

the query will be sent to that institution for answering. Once

the query has been answered, it is routed back to the original CDRS requesting library via the Request Manager to allow for

closing out the case and completing other administrative tasks.

Again, all post-answering processing by the Request Manager should take no more than mere milliseconds.11

The Virtual Reference Desk, described earlier in this article, has made several significant collaborative efforts. In 1998, the VRD Consortium was established. Consortium members from libraries and AskAs are developing criteria that can be used by the entire digital reference community. Facets of Quality for

Digital Reference Services12 sets forth standards and outlines characteristics and features for building a digital reference ser

vice. The Virtual Reference Desk Network, launched in January 2000, provides support to digital reference services by accepting out-of-scope and overflow questions:

This new service will provide support to Ask-an-Expert

(or AskA) services such as yours by accepting out-of-scope and overflow questions and routing them to more appropriate services. Based on our experience and research, we under

stand that AskA services can be easily overwhelmed by the

ever-increasing number of questions and the often limited set

of resources. VRD seeks to promote the valuable work of high

quality AskA services such as yours and to support them

through this type of collaboration as well as other resources

and services.13

More generally, the Virtual Reference Desk has served to

focus and consolidate interest and research in digital reference, with The Dig_Ref listserv being an excellent example. VRD staff also is working on the development of digital reference software for members with limited resources. Their "incubator" software under development was introduced at their Fall 2000 conference and will soon enter beta testing. Acting as a catalyst to further

discussion, VRD disseminates information and encourages research through its seminal publications: AskA Starter Kit: How to Build and Maintain Digital Reference Services by R. David Lankes and Abby S. Kasowitz (Syracuse, NY: ERIC Clearinghouse on

Information and Technology, 1998) and Building and Maintaining

Art Librarians: CDRS wants youi Collaborative Digital Reference Service (CDRS), a project

co-ordinated by the Library of Congress, and including more than fifty participating libraries, is working to build an inter national library network for the sharing and exchange of reference questions and answers. Pilots 1 and 2 used sample test (previously answered queries) data to focus on the mech anisms for the routing and delivery of questions and answers. In Pilot 3, librarians will be submitting "real" questions.

At this stage of development, CDRS actively seeks to enhance member resources in the area of special libraries, most particularly, art. A handful of art libraries is participat ing, including: Smithsonian American Art Museum;

Museum of Modern Art; National Gallery of Canada; National Gallery of Art (Washington, DC); Indiana

University; University of Wisconsin- Madison.

To learn more about the project, visit:

http://lcweb.loc.gov/rr/digiref/

or contact:

Linda Arret Network Development & MARC Standards Office

Library of Congress Voice: 202.707.1490 Email: larr@loc.gov

Joan Stahl Slide and Photo Archives Smithsonian American Art Museum Voice: 202.357.1348 Email: stahlj@saam.si.edu

Internet Information Services: K-12 Digital Reference Services by R. David Lankes (Syracuse, NY: ERIC Clearinghouse on

Information and Technology, 1999). The VRD Learning Center, a new addition to the many achievements of the organization, is aimed at parents, teachers, and students; it provides them with a classified list of experts, as well as access to an archive of fre

quently asked questions. Librarians who provide digital reference via e-mail and

Web-based forms quickly understand that this mode of commu nication restricts the reference interview. On the one hand,

patrons often feel more free to ask questions when they do not see or speak with a librarian, but on the other hand, the librarian often has difficulty understanding the request when he/she is unable to converse with the patron and ask follow-up questions. In addition, the medium makes it more difficult to teach the interested patrons to locate information on the Internet on their own because they are not present, in real-time, to follow the librarian's search strategy. With that in mind, many librarians have been experimenting with "real-time reference." They have taken a cue from call centers and help desks and are adapting the software for the function of reference work.

The most noteworthy collaborative project in this area is the

"24/7 Reference Project". It is a project of the Metropolitan

Volume 20, Number 1 ? 2001 ? Art Documentation 29

This content downloaded from 185.44.79.179 on Sun, 15 Jun 2014 14:04:08 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Cooperative Library System, supported by Federal LSTA fund

ing, and administered by the California State Library. The goal of this project is to provide libraries with the tools they need to do live reference on the Web, including "live chat," "collabora tive browsing," "Voice Over IP," and "click to call me," among

others, and to prove the feasibility of the concept. The software is designed to improve the efficiency and quality of question handling on the Web. The 24/7 Reference Project hopes to demonstrate the feasibility of this concept as applied to refer ence work and round-the-clock service that is available to

patrons, wherever they may be. Four public libraries and two

university libraries in Los Angeles and Orange Counties are

currently testing the 24/7 software. In July 2000, at least one of these libraries will use the software to provide reference assis tance to remote users.14

The concept of real-time/live reference has caught the

imagination of many and prompted the creation of "LiveRef," a

registry of real-time, digital reference services, as well as a dis cussion group.15

The Future

Digital reference represents a major change in the way ref erence librarians do business. The pilot projects that are

underway are generating enthusiasm by participants, patrons, and other information professionals, because they are each tak

ing a fresh look at reference and the possibilities that

technology offers to customize, personalize, and improve the

delivery of the service. Our libraries and reference services will be revitalized if we can take advantage of the opportunities that are available.

Wont to learn more about Aptd reference? Visit a few of the primary Web sites to get an extensive overview of the state-of-the art.

Virtual Reference Desk

http://www.vrd.org/ Collaborative Digital Reference Service

http: //lcweb.loc.gov/rr/digiref /

24/7 Reference Project http: / Zwww.247ref.org/ LiveRef

http://www.public.iastate.edu/~CYBER STACKS/LiveRef.htm#livereference

"Digital Reference Services: A Bibliography " com

piled by Bernie Sloan, Graduate School of Library and Information Science, University of Illinois at

Urbana-Champaign http://www.hs.uiuc.edu/-b-sloan/digiref.htirtl

Notes

1. Diane Nester Kresh, "Offering High Quality Reference Service on the Web: The Collaborative Digital Reference Service (CDRS)," D-Lib Magazine 6, no. 6 (June 2000).

[http://www.dlib.org/dlib/june00/kresh/06kresh.htrnl1 2. Michael K. Bergman, The Deep Web: Surfacing Hidden

Value. [White Paper] (Sioux Falls, SD: BrightPlanet, 2000).

[http : / / www, completeplanet. com / Tutorials / Deep Web /

index.aspl.

3. Kresh, "Offering High Quality Reference..."

4. Joann M. Wasik, "Building and Maintaining Digital Reference Services," ERIC Digest (March 1999): 1 (EDO-IR-99-04).

5. "About AskERIC" [http://www.askeric.Org/About/1 6. Lorrie Lejeune, "The Internet Public Library," The Journal

of Electronic Publishing 3 (December 1997).

[http://www.press.umich.edu/jep/03-02/IPL.html] 7. David A. Tyckoson, "What's Right with Reference,"

American Libraries 30 (May 1999): 57-63.

8. Kresh, "Offering High Quality Reference..."

9. Ibid.

10. Ibid.

11. Ibid.

12. http://www.vrd.org/training/facets.html

13. http: //www.vrd.org/invitation.html

14. http: //www.247ref.org 15. http://www.public.iastate.edu/-CYBERSTACKS/

LiveRef. h tm#li veref erence

30 Art Documentation ? Volume 20, Number 1 ? 2001

This content downloaded from 185.44.79.179 on Sun, 15 Jun 2014 14:04:08 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions