[WEB4LIB] What's wrong with virtual reference?

[Jean Willis]

Many good comments already on this topic.  I am also not sure where the author
sees all the purported "hype" about virtual ref, nor do I see anyone, so far,
suggesting that chat-ref will replace completely live, person-to-person ref
within a library.

Many who have already responded have pointed out obvious benefits to virtual
ref, such as serving those who are distant from bricks & mortar libraries
offering the materials that they need.  Others have pointed out that if this is
what (at least some) users want, then why not provide it?  Most of the
librarians I know do question and discuss the value of any technology before
blindly embracing it.

In CA, 12 of the County Law Libraries are participating in a state-wide,
collaborative 24x7 virtual ref service.  The service itself is staffed 24x7; the
county law librarians provide approximately 48 hours per week of "live" chat-ref
support (mainly from 8 to 5 on Mon-Fri).  At other times, the chat-ref service
can send us emails, which we answer later.

No one is saying that the chat-ref is the most ideal means of providing legal
reference service.  However, there are many areas of the state where it is
nearly, if not completely, impossible for a customer to come into a public law
library.  This is just one means of expanding and extending our services to the
citizens of our state.  Would it be better if these same citizens came in person
to talk to our wonderful Ref staff??  You betcha.  Is that a likely scenario?
No.

There are some definite benefits to virtual ref, and I quote the Director of the
Sacramento County Law Library, who is responding to a parallel listserv
discussion about virtual ref:

The big advantage of the live chat is that librarians can push a
webpage to the patron and both can see the search as it progresses.  At
Sacramento County Law Lib we are increasingly receiving telephone reference
questions where we give url's for the answer.  Pushing the page is a way
of making sure the person actually gets to the page we are recommending
and if they have a question once they get there, we are still seeing
what they are seeing on their screen.  Currently we only push to free
on-line resources as most, if not all of our license agreements do not
allow from off-site use.

The advantage of the group email box (from the virtual ref service) is that many
of the questions are best answered by a library in the county of the
questioner.  Many of the
questions are about local court rules and procedures.  The librarians
also have time to research the answer and make recommendations about
both on-line and book resources that may answer the question.  Today we
received our first question in Spanish.  One of our law reference
librarians from the group who knows Spanish was able to understand and
answer the question and there was even a self-help book in Spanish to
refer to the person.

***
Virtual ref has added onto the duties of our already busy Ref staff, but we feel
that it is a valuable means of reaching out to our customers, especially those
who are unable to walk in our doors.  We actually prefer email ref questions, as
they can be more convenient to deal with (we can get to them when we have time,
albeit we strive for a less than 24 hour turn-around).  That said, we feel that
virtual ref does work and is worth offering to our customers.

______________________________
Jean L. Willis                          jwillis at sdcll.org
Assoc. Dir. for Information Systems     (619) 531-4443
San Diego County Public Law Library     (619) 238-7716 (fax)
1105 Front Street                       http://www.sdcll.org
San Diego, CA 92101-3904




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