Virtual Reference Service in United States School of Law Libraries: Its Challenges and the Way Forward — Olugbenga Ademodi
Benefits
With virtual services users are not limited to the old brick and mortar establishment that was the library, but may instead access the library’s resources at any time from anywhere [21]. Another advantage of virtual reference service is that patrons who hitherto were unreachable may now be reached with ease. Chat software allows librarians to better ascertain reference questions than through the use of e–mail. “Co–browsing” and “escorting” the patron is another benefit of virtual reference service [22]. Co–browsing not only allows the librarian to work individually with the patron, but it also permits the patron to see the librarian’s computer screen which affords greater interaction between the librarian and the patron [23].
Most online users could be reached with this service. Previous non–users could also be reached and enticed by the virtual reference service. Virtual reference service takes online researchers where it finds them and excels at addressing online patron needs [24].
Notes
1. “Guidelines for Implementing and Maintaining Virtual Reference Services.” Reference & User Services Quarterly 44, no. 1 (2004): 9.
2. Nicholas Joint. “Virtual Reference, Second Life and Traditional Library Enquiry Services.” Library Review 57, no. 6 (2008): 417.
3. K. Nilsen, and C. S. Rose. “Evaluating Virtual Reference from the Users’ Perspective.” The Reference Librarian 95/96 (2006): 54.
4. M. Kathleen Kern. Virtual Reference Best Practices: Tailoring Services to Your Library. (Chicago: ALA, 2009), 1–3.
5. Ibid., 4.
6. Ibid., 2–4.
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid.
9. Ibid.
10. Ibid., chapters 1 & 2.
11. Ibid., 3.
12. L. Eakin, and J. Pomerantz. “Virtual Reference, Real Money: Modelling Costs in Virtual Reference Services.” Portal : Libraries and the Academy 9, no. 1 (2009): 134.
13. Kern, Virtual Reference Best Practices, 6.
14. Ibid., 7.
15. Ibid., 7–8.
16. G. Edward Evans and Margaret Z. Saponaro. Developing Library and Information Center Collections, 5th ed. (Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited, 2005), 130.
17. R. Slater, and D. Johnson. “Choosing Virtual Reference Software.” in Handbook of Electronic and Digital Acquisitions, Thomas W. Leonhardt, editor. (New York: Haworth, 2006): 127.
18. Ibid., 127–28; Kern, Virtual Reference Best Practices, ch. 2.
19. Slater and Johnson, “Choosing Virtual Reference Software,” 127.
20. Kern, Virtual Reference Best Practices, 8.
21. Bernie Sloan. “Service Perspectives for the Digital Library Remote Reference Services.” Library Trends 47, no. 1 (1998): 117.
22. Diane Kresh. “Virtually Yours: Thoughts on Where We Have Been and Where We Are Going with Virtual Reference Services in Libraries.” The Reference Librarian 79/80 (2002/2003): 24.
23. Ibid.
24. Ibid.