From Being Cool to a Global Reference Network – Going Live: Starting and Running a Virtual Reference Service

Citation

Mercer, P. (2004), "From Being Cool to a Global Reference Network – Going Live: Starting and Running a Virtual Reference Service", Library Management, Vol. 25 No. 1/2, pp. 82-83. https://doi.org/10.1108/01435120410510346

It is exciting to see this publication as in the past two years virtual reference has overshadowed almost every other reference topic along with information literacy.

And what is it? There is still confusion around terminology, with the IFLA Reference Work section’s recent draft Digital Reference Service Guidelines (www.loc.gov/rr/digref/digrefguidlines.html) calling virtual reference “chat service”. Virtual reference is defined as reference questions and answers conducted across the Internet, live and synchronous, using a software application, such as LSSI (Coffman’s employer) or MCLS (where he started) or some simple chat system software.

Steve Coffman, the main author of this work, is the acknowledged father of virtual reference because he adapted the technology that had been designed for commercial use to the library reference environment.

He cites 1997 as his turning point when he visited the software company Lucent and saw customer service technology, which enabled customers to make Web calls, not just visit the company Web site. Since then he has worked on two fronts: writing articles, giving conference papers and workshops to encourage reference librarians to redefine their role; and, harnessing call centre and Web technologies and adapting them to enable effective live reference transactions.

As he says in the Preface – “In the beginning, none of us knew the first thing about how to start and run a virtual reference service, so we just made it up as we went along”.

He acknowledges there were mistakes and a lot of learning, and this book is his attempt to pull together this learning for those coming after him.

With this and Anne Lipow’s The Virtual Reference Librarian’s Handbook (Neal‐Schuman and Library Solutions Press, 2003) there are now two key print resources for those seeking practical approaches to creating a virtual reference service. Overall, I did not find this one quite as practical as Lipow’s in terms of tools and layout, examples and a workbook approach.

Key features of this work are:

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  How to use the “Erlang C formula” (a call centre work load predictor).

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  Practical issues such as managing and operating a virtual reference service and employing staff.

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  An appendix on desirable system features.

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  The comprehensive bibliography by Bernie Sloan. (This is an abbreviated version of what he maintains at: www.lis.uiuc.edu/∼b‐sloan/diriref.html)

Of particular interest, are comments around the use of reference interview transcripts as a training and evaluation tool. With the live reference interview transcript it is now possible to have a way of identifying reference staff effectiveness. In itself this has the potential to shift customer service.

This is a well‐organised and accessible book, which covers a surprisingly large amount of material – from the history of reference to the future of libraries. It is of value as an up‐to‐date statement of the field and it certainly contributes to its practical studies. Based on my experience of establishing the Australian national collaborative service AskNow!, I suspect that for those starting a virtual reference service this one book will not be sufficient, however, and that several resources will be required.