Reference Training

There's a great resource for Reference Librarians on the web, put out by the Ohio Library Council; it's called ORE ON THE WEB.

ORE is an acronym for "Ohio Reference Excellence," and the site includes a series of modules, including one module specific to Virtual Reference.

Considering the educational technologies available to librarians and other educators, it's worthwhile to become proficient in Web 2.0, as well as other technologies and strategies that can be used to help remote users. More and more, our communications with those we teach are virtual, either over the phone or via e-mail.

* Several good pointers are provided in the aforementioned tutorial. Here is the best advice from the site:

* Type like you talk, in a conversational manner.

* Include an explanation of your search process or strategy in your responses when possible.

* Try to let the patron know what you are doing approximately every minute - so that the patron does not feel abandoned.

* Fully cite all resources quoted or used in responses.

For more information, check out Bernie Sloan's Digital Reference Services Bibiography, which includes more than 700 references to documents specific to online reference services.

Web 2.0, WorldCat and Social Bookmarking

Here are a few sites that will bolster the skills of any VR Librarian or technophile:

Virtual Karma: Complete List of Web 2.0 Applications | Rian's blog

Use eHub to stay current with Web 2.0 technologies.

Use delicious to view peer-to-peer tagged websites.

Use furl to tag websites and view those tagged by others (similar to delicious, but it has more of a social component).

Use bloglines to search for blogs on a topic.

Check out the Internet Archive, the Wayback Machine in particular, to view how reference services have developed over time -- hint: search for your library's web pages and view the site's development.

Books and Journals for VR Service Providers

For this post, I decided to provide a short bibliography of books and journals that might be useful to those who provide Virtual Reference services.

RECENT BOOKS:

Internet reference support for distance learners (2004)

Improving Internet reference services to distance learners (2005)

Virtual reference services: issues and trends (2003)

New directions in reference (2006)

Reference librarianship : notes from the trenches (2006)

Conducting the reference interview : a how-to-do-it manual for librarians (2002)

JOURNALS:

Reference & user services quarterly

The reference librarian

Reference services review : RSR

Internet reference services quarterly

RQ

OCLC reference news

LOEX quarterly

Advice from another VR Blogger

Since beginning my blog, I have joined Bloglines, and I find it addictive. I now view 44 feeds through Bloglines, one of which is a Virtual Reference Blog:

http://lbr.library-blogs.net/

lukethelibrarian posted an extremely articulate post entitled "Bright Sunlight" in which he comments on the fact that librarians, as experts, should use specialized tools, and presume the user has tried Google (or at least ask if the user tried Google and what keywords were used).

lukethelibrarian has some great advice, worth quoting:

"Get in the habit of using LII, IPL, and Reference Extract as additional general starting-points. Your bag of tricks should include specialized search tools (subscription and non-subscription) for every type of reference question you come across, whether it's federal government information, or consumer health information, or genealogy/local history, or ready reference. If you get a question that you don't already know of a specialized tool for, take the time and find one, even if it's after the session is over."


Not only are the links great pointers to publicly available tools that all Reference Librarians should master, the point that librarians should seek out specialized tools is key. Serving an information-hungry public requires that we have a repertoire of gourmet dishes with which we can delight them.

Virtual Reference Web Tools

Although I have worked at the Reference Desk in an academic library for about 2 years, and I am an avid user of Skype and Instant Messaging, I have mainly provided in-person reference services, and occasionally provided e-mail reference services. Because my work is currently in an academic library, I can usually answer questions by using one of the 200 databases to which Portland State University subscribes:

http://www.lib.pdx.edu/systems/eresources/resourcesByAlpha.php

Some questions are better answered by resources found on the open web, and I often use Google to find sources, but there are several good tools other than subscription databases and Google.

Refdesk.com provides search boxes for Google, MSN and Yahoo, as well as a search box to search multiple dictionaries simultaneously. There is even a search box for Amazon, and it appears that links to Amazon from the Refdesk site generate financial support for the Refdesk website.

LibrarySpot offers a vast set of reference tools, including Acronyms, Almanacs, Associations, Ask an Expert, Biographies, Business, Calculators, Calendars, Countries, Current Events, Dictionaries, Directories, Encyclopedias, Genealogy, Government, Grammar/Style, Historic Docs., How To, Images, Legal, Maps, Medical, Music, People, Public Records, Quotations, States, Statistics, Thesauri, Time, White Pages, Yellow Pages and Zip Codes.

These are just two of the many sites that can assist reference librarians to answer questions. Many libraries have their own "electronic reference shelves," a web page devoted to the most-used e-resources helpful in answering questions often asked in their particular venue.

"Ready Reference" tools are those used to answer the most frequently asked questions. The Librarian's Index to the Internet offers a myriad of links to "Ready Reference & Quick Facts"~ it includes links to other websites for librarians.

The Library of Congress provides links to sites that can help answer reference questions on its Virtual Reference Shelf website. Anyone can send a question to the "Ask a Librarian" online reference service, provided by the Library of Congress. Although I have used my local County Library's "Ask a Librarian" service, I have not used the Library of Congress's service. It would be interesting to see how they rate, comparatively, as far as quality and speed. . .

Virtual Reference, Description and Resources for Librarians

What is virtual reference?

Virtual reference, also known as digital reference, e-Reference, live chat reference, or online reference, describes the Internet-based question-answering services offered by many libraries. For a more complete definition, see the LIS Wiki definition of virtual reference.

Virtual reference includes e-mail reference (asynchronous communication), in which a user submits a question to a librarian via e-mail or web form, and live chat reference (synchronous communication), in which librarians and users exchange messages through an Internet connection. Some libraries are now offering SMS reference, also known as text messaging.

Virtual reference serves distance education students and many types of library patrons who cannot otherwise access the physical library, or prefer to interact via the Internet.

For a comprehensive list of libraries worldwide that provide online chat, see the LIS Wiki that lists Chat Reference Libraries.

If your library is not yet using virtual reference, see the ALA RUSA/MARS Guidelines for Implementing and Maintaining Virtual Reference Services.

For a list of vendors providing software for virtual reference, see the List of Vendors available via the Open Directory Project.

Introductory Post

This blog will be an exploration of the Blog form, assessing two information technology topics:

Virtual Reference
September 11, 2006 through October 22, 2006

Dyknow Vision
October 23, 2006 through December 3, 2006

Before Blogging about Virtual Reference and Dyknow Vision, I will offer some links that describe me:

Syracuse University Portfolio

Thesis

Work

Northwest Interlibrary Loan and Resource Sharing Conference
Conference Chair ~ 2004-2006

MySpace

Thanks for reading my Blog!
Sherry Buchanan

Feel free to drop me a line:
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Contact me via Skype ~ username sherrybuchanan
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