Read about "Q & A Cafe", an ONLINE Reference Service
Jacob Wang
jwang_94121 at yahoo.com
Wed Mar 21 12:52:53 EST 2001
Published Monday, March 19, 2001, in the San Jose
> Mercury News. See:
http://www0.mercurycenter.com/premium/local/docs/search19.htm
> or read below:
>
> Pilot program tries to
> provide reference
> service in minutes
>
> BY TRUONG PHUOC KHÁNH
> Mercury News
>
> Move over, Google. Make way,
> Yahoo. Meet
> Lynn, the live, online
> reference
> librarian.
>
> Bay Area libraries have banded
> together to launch a new service that
> matches the speed of search
> engines with the smarts of librarians,
> offering a tantalizing glimpse
> of a not-too distant future for those who
> seek answers and information
> in
> the Internet age.
>
> QandAcafe is a pilot service
> that allows people to have their questions
> asked -- and answered -- for
> free during real-time Web chats with the
> original searching experts:
> reference librarians.
>
> Lynn Symonds, a 43-year-old
> librarian from Palo Alto, has worked the
> reference desk at the main
> Palo
> Alto library for a dozen years, fielding
> inquiries like ``How many
> gallons are there in an Olympic-size pool?''
> and ``I'd like the recipe of
> an
> old Scottish dessert my grandmother used
> to make.''
>
> For QandAcafe, Symonds will
> continue answering those questions but
> in a virtual chat room, where
> patrons post questions and the librarians
> try to respond within minutes.
>
> Symonds is among about 80
> reference librarians from 25 libraries --
> Sonoma County to Monterey --
> who
> are linked up to staff QandAcafe.
> For now, only residents from
> San
> Bruno, Belvedere and Tiburon can
> log on to
> qandacafe.org or qandacafe.com
> and have questions answered, but
> the plan is to serve the
> entire
> Bay Area by year's end if the pilot run is
> successful.
>
> Live online information is one
> way libraries can thrive in the Internet
> world and change the public's
> perception of them as brick-andmortar
> places, said Joseph Janes, a
> professor at the Information School at the
> University of Washington.
>
> ``People feel really good
> about
> libraries,''
> Janes said. ``They love
> libraries. But they also think of it as a place to
> go for books.'' The challenge,
> he said, is to get people to think of a
> library as ``something other
> than a nice quiet place filled with nice quiet
> people.''
>
> There's been a worrisome buzz
> in
> the library world over the drop in the
> public's calls to reference
> librarians -- an inevitable byproduct when
> information is a click away.
>
> But even in this Web
> information
> era, many people still want someone
> to sort through the useless,
> weed out the incorrect, answer the obscure
> and provide some human
> reassurance. And the questions are getting
> tougher.
>
> ``People are going on the
> Internet to find answers to their questions,
> and what we end up getting are
> the questions they can't find for
> themselves,'' said Martha
> Walters, the library systems administrator for
> Palo Alto's public libraries.
> ``The complexity of the reference questions
> are getting harder and
> harder.''
>
> Reference librarians now must
> know how to navigate databases and
> create Web pages. Online
> searching courses are part of the two-year
> study for a master's degree in
> library science. All for a job that pays
> about $48,000 a year in the
> Bay
> Area and provides interesting
> challenges.
>
> QandAcafe bills itself as the
> ``authoritative source for expert
> information.'' Talk about
> pressure.
>
> ``It's like the first day on
> the
> reference desk. Am I going to be able to
> answer their questions?''
> Symonds nervously wondered just before her
> one-hour debut began.
>
> To prepare, the QandAcafe
> librarians have studied new searching
> techniques, refreshed their
> reference interview skills, and role-played
> with each other while honing
> Web-surfing strategies.
>
> ``It's exciting to do this,''
> Symonds said. ``It's fun.''
>
> That is, until her second
> QandAcafe inquisitor logged on. His question:
> ``Why does the letter `i' have
> a
> dot over it in lowercase?''
>
> The innocent little query
> caused
> Symonds to gasp softly.
>
> ``I will try to answer this
> question in a timely manner,'' Symonds typed
> in, smiling.
>
> The librarians are trained to
> let patrons know what they are doing. In
> these faceless encounters,
> such
> little assurances are a welcome
> alternative to a blank
> computer
> screen.
>
> Four minutes into her search,
> Symonds wrote that she was still looking
> ``for your very interesting
> question.''
>
> Using the Google search
> engine,
> Symonds scanned pages of ``i'' related
> blurbs, including this:
> ``According to a health report, the less one uses
> the letter `I' the less one's
> risk of coronary heart disease.''
>
> QandAcafe is designed to
> handle
> reference questions that can be
> researched online, including
> full-text articles from magazines and
> journals, encyclopedias,
> almanacs and directories. Librarians are asked
> to aim for an answer within
> seven minutes.
>
> Symonds, though, realized she
> would need more time and perhaps more
> tools of her trade to answer
> the
> ``i'' query. After six minutes, she told
> the patron she could research
> it
> further offline if he would like.
>
> Symonds estimates she can
> answer
> at least 60 percent of the questions
> she fields using the Internet,
> but reference librarians -- unlike a search
> engine -- go well beyond the
> Internet.
>
> In this case, the questioner
> declined, and librarian and patron signed off.
> On her first QandAcafe day,
> Symonds successfully satisfied two other
> queries -- one about killer
> bees
> and another about a mural-adorned
> tower in Astoria, Ore.
>
> The vacationer was grateful
> Symonds located the Astoria Column; the
> bee woman became even more
> anxious upon learning that the bees had
> been spotted in Kern County.
> ``OK, this is what I was afraid of . . .''
> she wrote Symonds.
>
> In addition to finding
> information, QandAcafe librarians ``push'' Web
> pages containing useful
> material
> to the patron's computer screen so
> patrons can view the data
> simultaneously with the searches.
> Transcripts of the sessions
> are
> e-mailed to patrons afterward, including
> URLs of Web sites used during
> the search.
>
> Kay Henshall, a reference
> librarian for the System Reference Center in
> San Jose, which supports
> reference services for public and some
> academic libraries in the Bay
> Area, said QandAcafe has received
> about 100 questions online,
> and
> patrons seem enthusiastic.
>
> ``We're one of the first to do
> this, and nobody really knows what's going
> to happen,'' said Henshall,
> who
> helped launch QandAcafe. `How many
> people would use it? What
> kinds
> of questions will they ask?''
>
> The Bay Area project follows
> one
> started at the Massachusetts
> Institute of Technology in
> January. There, librarians take turns staffing
> the virtual reference desk for
> two hours a day. The Bay Area's
> QandAcafe is ``open'' from 3
> to
> 9 p.m. weekdays. A consortium of
> public libraries in Southern
> California earlier this year also went online
> with its live reference
> project
> at www.247ref.org.
>
> Public libraries aren't alone
> in
> this information evolution; they are going
> toe-to-toe online with
> commercial enterprises like Webhelp and others
> that charge a fee for queries.
> On its Web page, Webhelp boasts: ``Real
> people. Real answers. Real
> time.'' The company says it has 2 million
> subscribers.
>
> Webhelp's ``Web wizards''
> track
> down information that is available
> online -- $9.95 for 10
> questions. QandAcafe is free.
>
> ``That's just what public libraries are all about:
> providing access to information for free,'' said
> Martha Walters, Palo Alto's library systems
> administrator.
>
> Eventually, if the nation's libraries all link up on
> the Web through a multitude of QandA Cafes, the
> instant reference service could expand to be
> ``open''
> 24 hours a day, every day, anywhere.
>
> ``It's 4 a.m. in San Jose; somebody in New York
> could
> be answering your questions,'' said Joan Bowlby,
> manager of reference services at San Jose's main
> library, where four librarians help staff QandAcafe.
>
> Indeed, some dream of a global network of online
> reference help.
>
> ``It's a whole new world,'' Bowlby said.
>
>
> Contact Truong Phuoc Khánh at tkhanh at sjmercury.com
> or
> (650) 688-7505.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> =====
> Jacob Wang
> 699 36th Avenue #308
> San Francisco, CA 94121
> (415) 387-0729
>
> __________________________________________________
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>
=====
Jacob Wang
699 36th Avenue #308
San Francisco, CA 94121
(415) 387-0729
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