Medical Librarian 2.0

Use of Web 2.0 Technologies in Reference Servics

M. Sandra Wood

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9780789036063
• eBook ISBN: 9781136771750
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Filología
• Subtopic: Biblioteconomía y ciencia de la información

Widespread use and acceptance of the World Wide Web in the home and office has eclipsed many other technological advances. Next-generation applications like wikis, podcasting, streaming video, virtual reference, RSS feeds, and blogs sit on the cutting edge of changes that will—and have already begun to—transform librarianship. Medical Librarian 2.0 is a vital groundbreaking resource for understanding and implementing these technologiesin reference services.

Medical Librarian 2.0 is both an examination of current technology and a resource for practical applications as well. This important collection includes informative chapters that cover the evolving spectrum of digital tools. Through detailed explorations of current technologies, as well as the ways institutions have implemented them to better serve both patrons and staff, this text provides the insight and necessary awareness required for librarians who want to stay current with these technologies and to make their services relevant to the newer generation of users.

With a wealth of informative tables, diagrams, Web site illustrations, online resources, photographs, and references, Medical Librarian 2.0 is an essential resource that looks at the pervasive Web technologies medical libraries—and other libraries—are successfully adapting to both update old services and provide new ones.

Contributors to Medical Librarian 2.0 discuss:

• the tools and applications shaping Web 2.0

• extending these vibrant technologies into librarianship with Library 2.0

• virtual reference services in academic health science libraries

• e-mail, chat, and web forms in the changing landscape of reference services

• syndicated information delivery via RSS and its integration

• producing, using, organizing, and distributing podcasts

• challenges to and successes of streaming video in health sciences libraries

• social networking, social media sharing, and social bookmarking tools

• tagging, peer production, blogs, and folksonomy

• open source software and content management systems like Drupal

• wikis and the organizational knowledgebase

• creating and utilizing blended applications and mashups

• current concerns over data and security

• and many other important topics!

With a wealth of tables, diagrams, Web site illustrations, online resources, photographs, and references, Medical Librarian 2.0 offers readers clear examples of these applications put into practice.

Medical Librarian 2.0 is an essential resource for librarians, especially those in medical settings, library science educators and students, and those looking to stay at the forefront of emerging reference technology.

Virtual Reference Services for the Academic Health Sciences Librarian 2.0

Ana D. Cleveland Jodi L. Philbrick

SUMMARY. Virtual reference services in academic health sciences libraries are fast becoming a popular way to deliver information services, as the results of the authors' study indicate. Over 90% of academic health sciences libraries offer virtual reference services with Web forms being the most common form of delivery. In the article, the authors provide an overview of virtual reference services, discuss key issues related to the provision of virtual reference services, review the literature on virtual reference services in academic health sciences libraries, and present a study on the trends in virtual reference services in academic health sciences libraries. doi:10.1300/J115v26S01_03 [Article copies available for a fee from The Haworth Document Delivery Service: 1-800-HAWORTH. E-mail address: <[email protected]> Website: <http://www.HaworthPress.com> © 2007 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.]

Keywords.

Virtual reference services, e-mail, Web forms, chat, instan messaging, academic health sciences libraries

Introduction

Librarians are used to delivering reference services in-person and via postal mail, telephone, and fax. With the advent of the Internet, technologies such as electronic mail (e-mail) and chat were tapped to deliver information services to users. Using these technologies to communicate with users has changed the landscape of reference services. In this article, the authors will provide an overview of virtual reference services, discuss key issues related to the provision of virtual reference services, review the literature on virtual reference services in academic health sciences libraries, and present a study on the trends in virtual reference services in academic health sciences libraries.

Overview of Virtual Reference Services

Virtual reference services, digital reference services, electronic reference services, and online reference services are terms that have been used in the literature to describe the interaction between users and librarians using Internet technologies. As Lankes writes, all of the terms "share a central concept: the use of software and the Internet to facilitate human intermediation at a distance."¹ For the purposes of this paper, the term virtual reference services will be used.

It is interesting to note that although the terms mentioned above have been used in the literature, they are not necessarily the terms or phrases used to index the articles in popular library and information sciences and medical databases. For instance, a search in the thesaurus of Library, and Information Science Abstracts yielded the phrase "Online reference work" to identify articles about virtual reference services, and the thesaurus of Library Literature and Information Science Full-Text uses the phrase "Reference services/Automation," which is used for "Automation of library processes/Reference services," "Online reference services," and "Virtual reference." Most interestingly, MeSH has no entry for virtual reference services or any variation of the phrase, and when conducting a search in PubMed on the topic, some articles were assigned the MeSH term of "Library Services/trends." Once again, this illustrates the lack of consistency in the terminology used for virtual reference services.

Just as there are many terms used for virtual reference services in the literature, there are many definitions of the concept. Markgren, Ascher, Crow, and Lougee-Heimer provide a general definition; "virtual reference, in the broadest sense, means nothing more than asking and answering a reference question via the Internet."² The Reference and User Services Association (RUSA), part of the American Library Association (ALA), defines virtual reference as a "reference service initiated electronically, often in real-time, where patrons employ computers or other Internet technology to communicate with reference staff without being physically present."³ Another simpler definition offered by Lankes is "the use of human intermediation to answer questions in a digital environment,"⁴ and this is similar to the definition given by Pomerantz, who states that it is "a service that provides users with answers to questions in a computer-mediated environment."⁵ Jin, Huang, Lin, and Guo offer a more detailed definition of virtual reference and write that it "refers to delivering a library reference service by electronic means, from asynchronous via e-mail, Web form, to real-time via chat, Web push, co-browsing, Voice over IP, etc."⁶

As the last definition illustrates, there are two categories of virtual reference services: asynchronous and synchronous. Asynchronous reference services do not occur in real-time; examples include e-mail, Web forms, and short message service (SMS) text messaging via cell phones. Synchronous reference services occur in real-time; examples include chat, instant messaging (IM), videoconferencing, and Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP).

Academic health sciences libraries primarily use e-mail, Web forms, chat, and IM to deliver reference services, and these forms of reference will be explored in more depth. As Gray writes, "Libraries began experimenting with e-mail reference services in the mid-1980s, mainly in health science and engineering libraries," and she attributes this to the fact that scientists and engineers were one of the first groups to use the Internet and e-mail.⁷ Over twenty years later, e-mail continues to be the most common form of virtual reference services,⁸ which is not surprising considering that "over 90% of [I]nternet users send and receive email."⁹ Communication via e-mail can take several iterations if information requests or responses need clarification, which can make the process very time consuming. Also, users may not respond when asked for clarification, thereby ending the transaction. As Gross, McClure, and Lankes state, "the idea that users would provide formulated questions if they wrote them out has not generally turned out to be true," and "this realization eventually led to a second standard of service in which a Web form interface is typically used to solicit specific information about questions from users and to limit digital reference requests to ready reference questions."⁸

Web forms, as mentioned previously, are an extension of e-mail, and they are online forms that users fill out and submit to the library. Web forms utilize fields that help to structure the user's information request. Janes and Silverstein's examination of Web forms revealed that nearly all Web forms have fields that ask for the user's name and e-mail address, and the next most popular fields were phone number, affiliation, and street/mailing address.¹⁰ Asynchronous reference services, although popular, do not offer interactivity, so libraries started experimenting with synchronous reference services in the 1990s.

Literature about chat reference services began appearing in the late 1990s.¹¹ As Mon writes, "chats can be one-to-one, as with call center software used by many libraries, or one-to-many if chat room software connects many patrons with a librarian."¹² Depending on the features of the software being used, chats may also include co-browsing, Web pushing, and application sharing. These features can create a very rich environment for users and librarians, but at the same time, using these features requires users and librarians to have certain settings or plug-ins on their computer. Not having the appropriate settings or plug-ins may dissuade users from using the service. As Lupien writes, "it is difficult to determine how many users lack the technical expertise, patience, and/ or inclination to go through a configuration process or download a piece of software onto their computer," and "it is reasonable to assume that this has an important impact on usage."¹³ Despite the technological drawbacks, librarians cannot overlook the fact that co-browsing is important to the instructional aspect of virtual reference, and as Graves and Desai report, it "can be an effective teaching technique" and was well-received by users despite the technical difficulties involved.¹⁴ Also, Johnston, through her study on digital reference transcripts, found that "60 percent of queries contain some instructional element."¹⁵ As discussed, chat reference service has advantages and disadvantages.

The three forms of virtual reference services mentioned earlier, e-mail, Web forms, and chat, can be offered through vendor-provided virtual reference software packages. Some of the more popular software packages are Tutor.com's Ask a Librarian, OCLC's QuestionPoint, Docutek VRLplus, and Live Person Pro (see Table 1 for more information). Common features of these software packages include e-mail management, call alerts, pushing, co-browsing, escorting, queue management, knowledge bases, scripts, and post-chat surveys.¹⁶,¹⁷ Although dated,

TABLE 1. Selected List of Virtual Reference Vendors and Their Products

Vendor	Product	Web Site
Tutor.com	Ask a Librarian	<http://www.tutor.com/products/aal.aspx>
OCLC	Question Point	<http://www.questionpoint.org/>
Docutek	VRLplus	<http://www.docutek.com/products/vrlplus/index.html>
LivePerson	LivePerson Pro	<http://www.liveperson.com/>

Hirko¹⁸ and Olivares¹⁷ provide useful information about the different virtual reference software packages available. According to Coffman, as of 2004, prices for high-end software packages can vary from $2,000 to $6,000 per "seat."¹⁹ Due to the costs associated virtual reference software packages, libraries have formed consortia to help offset the costs,²⁰ and other libraries have experimented with open source chat reference software, such as RAKIM.²¹ Also, some libraries have decided to forgo virtual reference software packages and have moved to other freely available alternatives to provide synchronous reference services, such as IM...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introduction
• Library 2.0: An Overview
• Virtual Reference Services for the Academic Health Sciences Librarian 2.0
• Applications of RSS in Health Sciences Libraries
• P.O.D. Principles: Producing, Organizing, and Distributing Podcasts in Health Sciences Libraries and Education
• Streams of Consciousness: Streaming Video in Health Sciences Libraries
• Social Networking
• Content Management and Web 2.0 with Drupal
• It's a Wiki Wiki World
• Mashing Up the Internet
• Index