FW: Guidelines for Implementing and Maintaining Virtual Reference Services

[Sloan, Bernie]

I've had a few people tell me that the link I gave in the following note is
a bad link, or a broken link.

Actually, it's a link that's a tad too long for some mail readers. It wraps
around, and then a character or two of the URL is "stranded" on the next
line. The URL is supposed to end in "htm", and not "ht" or "h".

If you have trouble putting the URL back together, I've set up a shortcut:

http://tinyurl.com/5cvs4

Bernie Sloan

-----Original Message-----
From: Sloan, Bernie 
Sent: Monday, July 26, 2004 10:51 AM
To: Multiple recipients of list
Subject: Guidelines for Implementing and Maintaining Virtual Reference
Services

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