Disadvantages of email reference

[Thomas L. Mead]

--- William Van De Mark wrote:
An online reference librarian who receives an email query from a user can be at
a disadvantage in comparison to is or her "real time" counterpart.  The online
librarian cannot assess a user's needs face to face ...
...
Could videoconferencing provide such a format?
--- end of quoted material ---


My setting = Dartmouth College, the Biomedical Libraries specifically.

Quick response:   I don't see many e-mailed reference questions that are
particularly ambiguous.   Here, they are usually "wrongly directed" questions
that I simply refer to ILL or CIRC, or they're straight-forward fact-look-up
questions.  (The address of a hospital in Scotland; the meaning of some
acronym; how to download to EndNote, etc.).  I think we can pretty quickly tell
if there is going to be a need for a real "reference interview"  -- those are
usually SUBJECT searches, to support research or paper-writing.  We can easily
get these people to come over in person...

I assume that videoconferencing takes a huge expensive RIG at both ends. 
(Whereas now absolutely everyone here has email...)  Doesn't seem quite
do-able, feasible, but I'll be monitoring this list for other opinions!

Tom Mead
Reference Librarian
tom.mead at dartmouth.edu