[Prodev] New Twists on Traditional Services: Reference

[Rosalie Sanderson]

<color><param>0100,0100,0100</param>  Good morning!  Several participants mentioned yesterday the 
continuing <italic>relevance</italic> of traditional services like reference and the 
importance of human contact, but with some new twists regarding 
service to users remote in space and time.  Let's explore these 
"new twists" today.


1)	24/7 Reference


Several librarians mentioned providing 24/7 reference yesterday.  
Do you truly provide reference at any hour, or just receive electronic 
questions submitted at any hour?  Are there any <italic>law firm </italic>librarians 
out there who provide real time 24/7 reference response?  Do you 
use live chat?  At my law school we are experimenting with 
Questionpoint for electronic reference, but few students have used 
it.  


2)  Are your outstanding electronic services and research guides 
creating better educated more informed reference consumers?


Kent McKeever (Columbia) mentioned a huge (318%) increase in 
indepth reference questions and Marylin Raisch (Univ. of Tornonto) 
noted an increase in indepth email reference questions.  I'd like to 
think that perhaps librarians are providing such oustanding 
"research guides' and other materials electronically that library 
users who work with these materials are better able to frame more 
sophiticated requests than in the past?


What do you think?  Why are some libraries getting more indepth 
reference requests?

<nofill>
Rosalie M. Sanderson
New York Law School
57 Worth Street, LB 11
New York, NY 10013

V: 212-431-2897
F: 212-963-8839
mailto:rsanderson@nyls.edu