email ref. question followup

[N. TOMAIUOLO, INSTRUCTION LIBRARIAN, CCSU]

Colleagues -- one addendum, David R. Newman wrote to me after I posted the
ref question URLs and added the following cogent thoughts:

On Mon, 28 Jul 1997 11:26:09 -0700 "N. TOMAIUOLO, INSTRUCTION LIBRARIAN, 
CCSU" <TOMAIUOLON at CCSUA.CTSTATEU.EDU> wrote:

> I should add some information 
> concerning a comment the Systems Librarian here made
> 
> He mentioned -- "What do you want the form to do?"

Here are a couple of possibilities. I would be interested to know if 
anyone is already doing them.

1. Storing questions and answers in a case-based reasoning system. 
Then make the CBR system accessible on-line, so that readers can type 
in their query and get a list of past queries that used similar 
words, and a number of questions they could answer to confirm that 
their query is similar. Something a simple as CBR-Express 
(www.inference.com) would handle that, or even, with a bit more 
effort, WebLS (www.amzi.com).

2. Diverting the reader to existing expert systems if their query 
falls into a particularly well-known type (e.g. the Financial 
Information expert system at Aston University Library).

3. Keeping track of the chains of people queries are forwarded to, so 
that you know whom to contact the next time a similar query appears 
(rather like the practice of Citizens' Advice Agencies or even your 
computerized help desk). The end result of this is the extinction of 
centralised, large, advice organisations, as local advice centres and 
libraries use the technology to communicate with small specialist 
advice centres and libraries (see 
http://www.qub.ac.uk/mgt/papers/advice/).
----------------------
Dr. David R. Newman, Queen's University Belfast,
School of Managment, BELFAST BT7 1NN, UK
Tel. +44-1232-335011 FAX +44-1232-249881
http://www.qub.ac.uk/mgt/ mailto:d.r.newman at qub.ac.uk