Guidelines for Implementing and Maintaining Virtual Reference Ser vices

[Sloan, Bernie]

Last month in Orlando, ALA's Reference and User Services Association Board
of Directors approved the "Guidelines for Implementing and Maintaining
Virtual Reference Services":

http://www.ala.org/ala/rusa/rusaprotools/referenceguide/virtrefguidelines.ht
m 

These guidelines were prepared by the RUSA MARS Digital Reference Guidelines
Ad Hoc Committee (see list of committee members below).

An excerpt from the introduction to the guidelines reads:

"The purpose of these guidelines is to assist libraries and consortia with
implementing and maintaining virtual reference services. The guidelines are
meant to provide direction, without being over-prescriptive. Variance among
institutions will result in differences in the adherence to these
guidelines, but the committee hopes to have cast the model broadly enough to
provide a framework for virtual reference which can be widely adopted and
which will endure through many changes in the ways in which libraries
provide virtual reference services."

Committee members:

John Glace, Ocean County (NJ) Library System
Kathleen Kern, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (co-chair) Lori
Morse, Free Library of Philadelphia Janice Rice, University of
Wisconsin-Madison Jana Ronan, University of Florida Bernie Sloan, University
of Illinois (co-chair) Kristine Stacey-Bates, Iowa State University


Bernie Sloan
Senior Library Information Systems Consultant, ILCSO
University of Illinois Office for Planning and Budgeting
616 E. Green Street, Suite 213
Champaign, IL  61820

Phone: (217) 333-4895
Fax:   (217) 265-0454
E-mail: bernies at uillinois.edu