Prepared by:
MYRNA P. MACAPIA, RL

Trends in Reference Service
Anne Lipow- “Early signposts pointing the wrong
way”
•Decreased circulation statistics
•Fewer walk-in users
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•Staff can’t keep up
•Reference desk eliminated
•Outsourcing on the rise
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•Reduced Reference service hours
•Search engines: automated reference
librarian
•Need for large building and staff not clear
Anne Grodzins Lipow, “Thinking out loud:
Who will give reference service in the
digital environment?” RQ 37(2) (Winter
1999), pp. 125-9.

Impact of the Internet
In 2002:
73% of college students said they use the
Internet more than the library
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Only 9% said they use the library more than
the Internet for information searching.
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The Pew Internet & American Life Project.
(September 15, 2002).
http://www.usdla.org/html/journal/OCT02_Is
sue/article03.html (accessed September 29,
2011)

Impact of the Internet
In the digital age, the biggest change is
increased user expectations. Increasingly, user
expect to be able to find everything online, full-
text.” (1998)
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“Now both reference staff and patrons believe
that an answer to almost every question can be
found if the right combination of resources and
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search strategies is chosen from the multitude of
Web resources and online services accessible.”
(2002)
Carol Tenopir and Lisa Ennis

What is Virtual Reference Service (VRS)?
Internet-based Reference Service
Asking a question online
Live online reference service
Virtual, digital, live, interactive, real time, web-
based,
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synchronous
“Using computer and communications
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technology
to provide reference service to patrons anytime
and
anywhere”
- OCLC’s Question Point (QP)

What is Virtual Reference Service (VRS)?
Internet-based Reference Service
Asking a question online
Live online reference service
Virtual, digital, live, interactive, real time, web-
based,
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synchronous
“Using computer and communications
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technology
to provide reference service to patrons anytime
and
anywhere”
- OCLC’s Question Point (QP)

Virtual Reference Desk
a project dedicated to the advancement of
digital reference and the successful creation and
operation of human-mediated, Internet-based
information services.
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is sponsored by the United States Department
of Education
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U.S. Dept of Education’s
Virtual Reference Desk Guidelines
Accessibility
Fast turn-around
Clear policies
Interactive
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Instructive
Authority
Privacy
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Review and evaluation
Publicize service
IFLA Digital Reference Guidelines
"Guidelines for Implementing and
Maintaining Virtual Reference
Services.“ American Library Association.
2005.

Pros and Cons of VRS
Pros Cons
◦ Immediate ◦ Additional staff
assistance for
◦ Less flexible schedule
remote users
◦ Lack subject expertise
◦ Real time VRS is
better than email for ◦ No visual or auditory cues
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conducting reference ◦ Less interactive
interview ◦ Typing is slow
◦ Remains
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◦ Some logoff before you
anonymous finish answering
◦ Awareness of the ◦ Slow communications
library among the
user community

Developments in VRS
Asynchronous Synchronous digital
digital reference reference
Patron submits a Patron and librarian
question and the communicate in real
librarian responds at a time.
later time
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Example:
Email, Web Form Example:
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Chat, Voice over IP,
Video Conferencing,
SMS, IM

More VRS Developments
a. Email & Web Form
b. Reference Kiosks
c. Instant Messaging & Short Message Service
d. Video Conferencing
e. Voice over IP
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f. Online Chat
g. Collaborative Reference Services
h. Commercial Services
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More VRS Developments
a. Email & Web Form
Describe the services offered
Types of questions it handles, or does not handle
Frequency the mailbox is checked
Response time
Confidentiality
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Priorities
How statistics are kept and how service is evaluated
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More VRS Developments
b. Reference Kiosks
Place Cybrarian Kiosks in the library so that users can ask
librarians wherever they are in the library
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HK Central Library
Reference kiosks provide quick access to Kiosk
the Library's database resources.

More VRS Developments
c. Instant Messaging (IM)
Brief emails exchanged very fast in real time
Service User count
AIM (AOL Instant Messenger) 53 million active
an instant messaging and
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presence computer program which
uses the proprietary OSCAR instant
messaging protocol and the TOC
protocol to allow registered users to
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communicate in real time.

More VRS Developments
c. Instant Messaging (IM)
Brief emails exchanged very fast in real time
Service User count
eBuddy is a privately held 35 million total
company which owns a browser-
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based web and mobile messenger
service supporting various instant
messaging services. eBuddy was
launched in 2003 under the name e-
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Messenger, located at www.e-
messenger.net, before rebranding
itself in 2006 to eBuddy.

More VRS Developments
c. Instant Messaging (IM)
Brief emails exchanged very fast in real time
Service User count
IBM Lotus is a client–server application 40 million total (licensed, entitled users in
and middleware platform that provides enterprises
real-time, unified communications and
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collaboration for enterprises. Those
capabilities include presence information,
enterprise instant messaging, web
conferencing, community collaboration,
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and telephony capabilities and
integration. It is sold by the Lotus
Software division of IBM.

More VRS Developments
c. Instant Messaging (IM)
Brief emails exchanged very fast in real time
Service User count
ICQ is an instant messaging computer program, 50 million active
which was first developed and popularized by
the Israeli company Mirabilis, then bought by
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America Online, and since April 2010 owned by
Mail.ru Group. The name ICQ is a homophone
for the phrase "I seek you". This is an adaptation
of the Morse code callout "CQ", which means
"calling any station".
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More VRS Developments
c. Instant Messaging (IM)
Brief emails exchanged very fast in real time
Service User count
IMVU is an online social entertainment 1 million total
destination where members use 3D avatars to
meet new people, chat, create and play games
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created by Fydor Guthenschlag. IMVU has over
50 million registered users, 10 million unique
visitors per month and three million monthly
active users. IMVU has the world’s largest virtual
goods of more than 10 million items(some
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hidden by their creators), almost all of which are
created by its own members.

More VRS Developments
c. Instant Messaging (IM)
Brief emails exchanged very fast in real time
Service User count
Mail.ru Agent (MRA, M-Agent) is a free 1 million active (daily)
instant messaging program created by Mail.ru,
one of the largest Russian web portals. Besides
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basic IM functionality (presence, contact list,
sending text messages, file transfers, message
history, etc.), M-Agent also provides online
gaming, peer-to-peer voice calls, video calls,
low-rate VoIP calls, free SMS, automatic mail
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checking and other useful features.

More VRS Developments
c. Instant Messaging (IM)
Brief emails exchanged very fast in real time
Service User count
Meebo is a social platform connecting users 1 million total
with their friends across the web. It began in
2005 as a browser based instant messaging
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program which supported multiple IM services,
including Yahoo! Messenger, Windows Live
Messenger, AIM, ICQ, MySpaceIM, Facebook
Chat, Google Talk, CafeMom and others
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More VRS Developments
c. Instant Messaging (IM)
Brief emails exchanged very fast in real time
Service User count
Mxit (pronounced "mix it") is a free instant
messaging application developed by MXit
Lifestyle (Pty) Ltd. in South Africa that runs on 11 million total (9 million
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multiple mobile and computing platforms. Along
with its own standard protocol, it can connect to in South Africa)
Yahoo, ICQ, Google Talk, Facebook, AIM, or
Windows Live Messenger contacts as well
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More VRS Developments
c. Instant Messaging (IM)
Brief emails exchanged very fast in real time
Service User count
Paltalk Messenger, or simply referred to as
Paltalk, is an Internet chat service that allows
users to communicate via instant messaging,
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voice and video chat. It offers thousands of chat
3.3 million unique visitors
rooms and the ability for users to create their
own virtual chat room on any topic and category. per month
Paltalk Messenger is a downloadable software
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application that is currently available only for
Windows.

More VRS Developments
c. Instant Messaging (IM)
Brief emails exchanged very fast in real time
Service
Tencent QQ, generally referred to as QQ, is the most popular free instant
messaging computer program in mainland China. As of July 11, 2011, the
active QQ users accounts for QQ IM totaled 812.3 million, possibly
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making it the world's second largest online community.
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More VRS Developments
c. Instant Messaging (IM)
Brief emails exchanged very fast in real time
Service
VZOchat (pronounced as viziochat) is a free software for making video
calls and instant messaging. Unlike well-known Skype and other VoIP
software, VZOchat is not based on P2P technology. Instead, it uses a
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central server to handle data flows. As of January 2010, the community of
VZOchat users comprised more than 1,100,000 people and rapidly
growing.
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More VRS Developments
c. Instant Messaging (IM)
Brief emails exchanged very fast in real time
Service
Windows Live Messenger (formerly named MSN Messenger) is an
instant messaging client created by Microsoft that is currently designed to
work with Windows XP (up to Wave 3), Windows Vista, Windows 7,
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Windows Mobile, Windows CE, and others. The client has been part of
Microsoft's Windows Live set of online services since 2005. It connects to
Microsoft's .NET Messenger Service.
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More VRS Developments
c. Instant Messaging (IM)
Brief emails exchanged very fast in real time
Service
Xfire (pronounced "X-Fire”) is a proprietary freeware instant messaging
service for gamers, that also serves as a game server browser and has
various other features. It is currently available for Microsoft Windows.
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More VRS Developments
c. Instant Messaging (IM)
Brief emails exchanged very fast in real time
Service
Yahoo! Messenger (sometimes abbreviated YIM) is an advertisement-supported
instant messaging client and associated protocol provided by Yahoo!. Yahoo!
Messenger is provided free of charge and can be downloaded and used with a
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generic "Yahoo! ID" which also allows access to other Yahoo! services, such as
Yahoo! Mail, where users can be automatically notified when they receive new email.
Yahoo! also offers PC-PC, PC-Phone and Phone-to-PC service, file transfers,
webcam hosting, text messaging service, and chat rooms in various categories.
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More VRS Developments
c. Short Message Service (SMS)
A service available on most digital mobile phones
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Permits people to send short messages
between
Mobile phones
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Other handheld devices
Landline telephones

More VRS Developments
d. Video Conferencing
Videoconferencing is the conduct of a
videoconference (also known as a video
conference or videoteleconference) by a set of
telecommunication technologies which allow two
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or more locations to interact via two-way video and
audio transmissions simultaneously. It has also
been called 'visual collaboration' and is a type of
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groupware.

More VRS Developments
d. Video Conferencing
Video Conferencing Software
A combination of chat software, audio and video applications
2 kinds of software
Software for writing classes
Software for businesses to hold conferences
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Examples:
Daedalus
GroupWise
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Web Publisher
Norton Connect Net
Microsoft NetShow
Microsoft NetMeeting
Reilly WebBoard

More VRS Developments
d. Video Conferencing
Video Conferencing Software
EXAMPLE: Microsoft NetMeeting
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SERVICES

More VRS Developments
e. Voice over IP
Since 2003 IM services have voice components
MSN Messenger, AOL IM, Yahoo Messenger
Provides free or low-cost talk on internet
Negative - call other Internet users using the same
software program
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Positive - make calls to land and cellular-based
phones for a
modest fee
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New programs
Skype, Google Talk

More VRS Developments
e. Voice over IP
Service User count
Skype is a software application that allows users
to make voice and video calls and chats over the
Internet. Calls to other users within the Skype
service are free, while calls to both traditional Skype has 929 million
landline telephones and mobile phones can be registered users as of
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made for a fee using a debit-based user account September 2011
system. Skype has also become popular for its
additional features which include instant
messaging, file transfer, and videoconferencing.
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More VRS Developments
e. Voice over IP
Service
Google Talk is a freeware voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) client
application[offered by Google Inc. The first beta version of the program was released
on August 24, 2005. It is available for the Android operating system, Microsoft
Windows (XP, Server 2003, Vista, and Windows 7), Intel Mac OS X 10.5 or later,
GNU/Linux, and Google Chrome OS.
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SERVICES

More VRS Developments
f. Online Chat
Online chat may refer to any kind of communication over the Internet,
that offers an instantaneous transmission of text-based messages
from sender to receiver, hence the delay for visual access to the sent
message shall not hamper the flow of communications in any of the
directions. Online chat may address as well point-to-point
communications as well as multicast communications from one sender
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to many receivers.
The following are common chat programs and protocols:
•AOL Instant Messenger •Paltalk
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(AIM) •QQ
•Camfrog •SILC
•Campfire •Skype
•Gadu-Gadu •Talk
•Google Talk •Talker
•I2P-Messenger (anonymous, •TeamSpeak (TS)
end-to-end encrypted im for •Windows Live Messenger
the I2P network) •XMPP
•ICQ (OSCAR) •Yahoo! Messenger
•InSpeak Communicator
•Internet Relay Chat (IRC)

More VRS Developments
Chat Debate - Pro
Reach out to patrons who
Can’t get to the Reference desk
Never have been reached before
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Good for
Those who need instant replies
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Clarifying a question faster
Assisting users to learn effective ways to search
through co-browsing and escorting

More VRS Developments
Chat Debate - Con
Some transactions never finished
System or browser crashes
Co-browsing proprietary db is difficult
Patrons disappear
Time-consuming
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Librarians must multi-task
Concerns about quality
Shady reputation
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Low acceptance on the web by commercial
business

More VRS Developments
g. Collaborative Reference Service
Extend hours of coverage of participants to 24/7
Cooperation and collaboration, informal or network
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arrangement
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More VRS Developments
h. Commercial Service
 Information Please
Search engine  Know’Post
AskJeeves  Experts Exchange
 Inforstry
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Ask yahoo
Expert systems:  Webhelp.com
Allexperts.com  Questia
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Google  Ask.yahoo.com/ask/most
answers  LC’s Ask a Librarian
AskMeNow  Virtual Reference Desk

Quote about VRS
Digital reference matters but it will not if
we:
do it badly
do it alone
do it only one way
do it in secret
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do it too slowly
or from a position of fear
- Joe Janes
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