Implementing Digital Reference Services: Setting Standards and Making It Real

Citation

Pan, R. (2004), "Implementing Digital Reference Services: Setting Standards and Making It Real", Program: electronic library and information systems, Vol. 38 No. 1, pp. 81-82. https://doi.org/10.1108/00330330410519260

This collection of papers grew out of the 3rd Annual Virtual Reference Desk Conference (VRD) held in 2001, with selected papers extensively revised and new material produced for peer‐reviewed print publication. Included are a Foreword, Preface, Introduction and Afterword. The 19 main chapters are arranged in six parts, each of which contains a brief overview. The six sections broadly follow the life cycle of a digital reference service: Identifying the need for a digital reference service; Managing key digital reference issues; Implementing real‐time reference service; Collaborative reference services; Using key findings from research into digital reference; Evaluation of digital reference. There are lists of tables and figures, an index, and biographical information about both editors and contributors. Each individual chapter concludes with a list of references.

The aims of the book are to represent the state‐of‐the‐art in digital reference, to contribute a volume that includes both scholarship and practical solutions and to set the overall agenda for future work in this area.

Does the title succeed in its aims? The editors aim to set an agenda for digital reference “in all its aspects” and a wide range of issues related to shifting from the physical enquiry desk to the computer desktop are covered. This includes the provision of human‐intermediated assistance through the Internet, by means such as online chat or conferencing, and the very different aim of eliminating the need for mediation altogether, by such means as natural language processing systems, which subsequently point to Web site information. The service in all cases is clearly some form of query answering, but should all of this be considered to be a digital reference service, or is there some line to be drawn between a mediated reference service and an information service? The editors restrict their own definition to human‐mediated services but not all contributors do so and, with such a wide scope, there are inevitably a certain confusion and lack of depth. Most chapters are very short and, being based upon conference papers, contributions tend to address very specific aspects of the subject. Consequently, this is not suitable as an introductory volume and the six main headings perhaps give a misleading impression of comprehensiveness. Part 1, for example, is titled “Identifying the need for a digital reference service”. It includes only two chapters, one on the evolution of an e‐mail and Web reference service at the Colonial Willamsburg’s John D. Rockefeller Jr Library and one on government digital reference and the partnership of University of Illinois Chicago with the State Department. Transferable general issues have to be picked out from this specialist content.

Just as I struggled with the specificity of some contributions, so I also found it challenging to relate to the cutting edge work covered in some contributions. As one author says, “some critics may still ask whether it is just hype”. Indeed they may, with academic libraries offering a digital service reporting around 15 online queries a week in the more successful examples, and most receiving minimal use. The editors draw attention in both the Introduction and the literature review to this light use, which contrasts so markedly with the explosion in use of commercial Web reference sites such as AskJeeves. But this issue is not addressed adequately in most of the other contributions. As the editors note, and as is very evident in this collection itself, there is too little stress in the literature on market research, publicity and the need to integrate with those delivering the curriculum or targeting user groups with most to gain from an online service. I was left uneasy at the prospect of an isolated and self‐perpetuating library digital reference community (a phrase much used here) evolving and absorbing resources but unrelated to user need or demand. Though the central sections on real‐time and collaborative online reference services are undeniably exciting, this question of the likely user base is not much attended to here. Lack of return on investment must surely be more of a key issue than artificial intelligence, copyright or privacy, the issues actually identified as key in part 2, which I found the least inspiring section.

Despite being aimed at librarians and researchers anywhere on the digital reference continuum, more may be gained here by those who are further ahead and have already formed a view on the basic questions. Those still at the stage of trying to organise the fragmented e‐mail and Web‐based services that have evolved over the years may struggle to find relevance or indeed take seriously some material here on the further frontier, such as the concept of a “digital reference cloud”.

With a US origin, the volume naturally does not concentrate on the issues within a UK context. Only one article, covering US copyright law, could be said to be largely irrelevant to a UK audience, and there is one article on the Open University OPAL (Online Personal Academic Librarian) project which is highly relevant. But many current hot topics for UK librarians get little attention. There is little about resource pressures and other calls upon our budgets, or about the current state of UK library collaboration on which services will have to be built here. For academic libraries, there is no mention of the possibilities of integrating online reference with a university portal or VLE (virtual learning environment) and so within the overall user information and learning environment.

The original papers from the 2001 conference on which this volume is based are available online (www.vrd.org/conferences/VRD2001/proceedings/index.shtml). The material in the printed volume is significantly different, with just over half of the chapters based upon papers delivered at the conference. Nevertheless, potential purchasers should be aware that these papers, and those of the subsequent 2002 VRD conference, can be browsed online free and that they can get up to speed in this way, should funds be lacking for a print purchase. Also useful are the free Web bibliographies (such as that of Bernie Sloan at: www.lis.uiuc.edu/∼b‐sloan/digiref.html, helpfully highlighting new materials from 2002 and 2003 in red), which will naturally be more up to date than the references in this volume. The volume certainly succeeded in getting me thinking seriously about the issue of digital reference in my own library service, but with a good amount of material available free online I have doubts about the need for UK librarians to invest in this rather pricey and patchy print volume, particularly given its US bias.