During the 2007 IFLA conference, QuestionPoint hosted a discussion on virtual reference around the world. Librarians from Australia, Croatia, France, Germany, South Africa, the United Kingdom and the United States attended the meeting, held on Wednesday August 22, 2 PM to 4 PM in Durban South Africa.
Here are some highlights from the meeting:
We started the meeting with a brief introduction from each participant. Many of the meeting attendees represented libraries in South Africa, including public libraries in Cape Town and Johannesburg, as well as several university libraries: the University of South Africa (UNISA), University of Cape Town, and Stellenbosch University. Stellenbosch and UNISA both use QuestionPoint; Stellanbosch uses the knowledge base extensively. UNISA has over 200,000 students on 5 campuses and is part of GAELIC (Gauteng and Environs Library Consortium). Of the public libraries attending, Cape Town has 104 service points and the Johannesburg system has 47 branches.
Several attendees were active participants in cooperative virtual reference services in their countries:
*The state library of Western Australia participates in Australia’s nationwide AskNow service, now in its 5th year. AskNow is experimenting with a nationwide Instant Messaging component to supplement their web-based service.
*Participants from the Enquire service provided an update on this nationwide 24/7 chat service. Enquire originally consisted of public libraries in England but is now expanding to include libraries in Scotland. The Enquire service will be joining the 24/7 Reference Cooperative in 2008.
*Berlin Central and Regional Library has created partnerships with libraries throughout the world, to provide multilingual reference services. Currently Berlin offers reference services in 21 languages, and more are on the way. This fall, Berlin is embarking on a new project: Chat for Children, with some partner libraries in Germany.
*From the US, a member of the 24/7 Reference academic cooperative – from the University of Arkansas – spoke of their experiences in providing reference help for students from other universities. Several members of the Library of Congress also attended the meeting.
Once introductions were done, we discussed several general themes, including: training and keeping staff up to date and motivated; different technologies used in virtual reference (such as IM); and marketing and promotion of virtual reference services. A big topic was cooperation, its benefits and challenges. Among the benefits mentioned by the group are:
* In effect, an institution gets more staff
* Longer hours of service
* Greater language coverage
* Subject coverage is expanded
* Reduces isolation and enhances confidence
Challenges mentioned:
* Trust
* Very specific institution questions
* Load balancing
If you attended the meeting, please feel free to add more information about your virtual reference service. All are welcome to add comments related to virtual reference cooperation, especially in an international context.
- Susan McGlamery, QuestionPoint
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