Search

While the racial diversity of academic library users continues to grow, research on the effects of this diversity remains scarce. This study looks at similarities and differences between non-traditional Caucasian and African American library users through content analysis of 94 virtual reference transactions.

Virtual reference, which allows users to connect easily with librarians online, is becoming popular. Librarians answer thousands of questions every day over the Internet. As the service matures, professional associations publish standards that provide professional guidelines to improve the quality of the services. This article focuses attention on the quality of these e-services in light of professional and ethical standards in the field. It examines the extent to which librarians adhere to professional and ethical guidelines and the role that virtual reference plays in providing services to diverse user groups. First, it discusses adherence to the professional standards and shows that the professional behaviors of librarians vary depending on user, institution, and request types. Then, it discusses the extent to which librarians provide equitable online reference services to diverse users groups and the inconsistent findings from empirical research.

Several aspects related with reference service planning and management are focused. First comes the definition of the concept of reference service. Then, a further analysis of material resources and of the work tools required for the implementation of a reference service, follows these theoretical aspects . The profile of a reference librarian, as well as all the inherent steps to the reference process are depicted and analysed, along with the evaluation of these same services. Finally, there’s a brief setting of digital reference services, and a selection of reference services that operate through the Internet are presented.

Technological innovations have played a key role in the development of new information services in libraries, allowing a greater interaction between users and reference librarians. The article comments on a set of concepts of virtual refrence and examples of this kind of services in Mexico and other countries, presenting in a simple manner a series of steps necessary to develop a virtual reference service.

Studies that examined virtual reference and its potential for collaboration have by and large represented experiences in western English-speaking countries. This article reports the results of a three-nation (Israel, Japan, and Lebanon) comparative analysis to bridge this research gap. Similarities and differences between these countries highlight elements that international collaborative initiatives should consider when implementing global virtual reference services.

Within the activities of Bibliosan, network of scientific libraries coordinated by the Italian Ministry of Health, RefWorks, library tool managing references, was deeply investigated, in the respect of its functionalities, particularly for Italian users.

Starting from the changing role of the user in information systems in the Web 2.0 this paper critically questions the concept of information literacy. Five theses on information literacy 2.0 as well as suggestions for further reading offer the possibility to change the perspective of the view on information literacy predominating in German libraries in the direction of a more holistic view of information and learning processes.

Planning for the Information Service Community (SIC)oriented GLTTIBQ people between Argentina and Brazil in the framework of the Master of Library and Information Science at the Buenos Aires University

This paper aims, offer insight and analysis: "Professional Information and Information Units". That is in addition to meeting points and assigned study subjects, we will providing opinions and personal assessments, especially by way of conclusion, after developing the essential points. Give a complete picture of performance, qualities, skills and management of Professional Information that good today must have. We will also see that requirements must meet an ideal Information Unit to provide efficient services to the community that hosts it.

The "drone mania" started. These technological flying machines are becoming slowly in a common "toy" for teens and adults geeks. But what is a drone?. It is the symbol of an unmanned aerial vehicle, known as UAVs, which is managed through a remote device. These devices can be used for research, security, leisure, geography, journalism, audiovisual production, major disasters, however its use is potential. The big question is whether these flying objects will libraries in Latin America. But I dare more: they are necessary for the information units?. What types of services could include these devices?. Why not?. Libraries should be at the forefront of technology with respect to reducing the large digital and information gap that prevails in our continent.

The article addresses the information needs of the productive sector from the perspective of a technological information service destined to small business, the Brazilian Service for Technical Answers (Serviço Brasileiro de Respostas Técnicas – SBRT), which is an effort shared by government, research institutions, universities and private sector. A descriptive exploratory survey was conducted by means of the application of a questionnaire to the users of one of SBRT members, the Technological Development Support Center of the University of Brasilia (CDT/UnB). The results have revealed that service is being mainly used by individuals (92%), entrepreneurs “searching for new business”. This was the answer of 35% of the individuals, concerning their motivations to use the service. The technological solutions provided by SBRT have actually been applied for the improvement of processes and production (54%).

Today information is sought first of all in the internet – and even regular library users do nothing different. Libraries have adapted themselves to this and have built up virtual sub-branches on the net with online-catalogues, digital libraries, full-text databases and direct interlibrary loan. A new addition to this palette is "DigiAuskunft" (digital information). It started up as planned at the beginning of 2006 at the Dortmund City and State Library, and soon thereafter at the Cologne University and City Library, the University Library of Dortmund, the Cologne City Library and, since April, at the Technical College of Cologne. At each library site a few, but not particularly exhaustive preliminaries were necessary: modification of the web-based blank forms, creation of text modules and signature blocks, development of the knowledge database and establishing local text modules. An internal mailing list was set up among all users to help solve initial problems and discuss software improvements. The system has proven its worth in the practice. The processing of reference inquiries has been considerably simplified and can be accomplished from any internet PC. About 80 percent of the inquiries deal with local topics related to the respective library (regarding the collection, the individual user account, and specific services). Pure reference questions, such as that from a user in Amsterdam seeking an article about Westphalia history, are still rather scarce. Hence it has rarely been necessary to forward an inquiry to the entire network. In the course of this summer 18 more libraries will join the online network, and there are more getting ready on the sidelines.

The impulse given by the Knowledge Management and the Evidence Based Medicine has contributed to that the librarians acquire strategies to manage the process of learning of the health care professionals and participate in multidisciplinary working group, in order to sustain the decisions of the physicians with information of proven effectiveness, for a clinical practice of quality, contributing in this way to rethink the role of librarian as an information consultant.

This study reports an experiment that examines whether librarians provide equitable virtual reference services to diverse user groups. The relative absence of social cues in the virtual environment may mean greater equality of services though at the same time greater inequalities may arise as librarians can become less self-aware online. Findings indicate that the quality of service librarians provide to African Americans and Arabs is lower than the quality of service they provide to Caucasian, Hispanic, Asian, and Jewish students. This study adds to the knowledge of subjective bias in the virtual environment by specifying those that are discriminated against online, identifying the kinds of discriminatory actions of virtual reference librarians, and identifying the type of queries that more frequently result in unbiased service.

The work of the Reference Service is usually defined as "a direct professional help to users in their search for Information". It is characterized by three main functions: informative, educational and instructive. In its logical progression, the Reference process has several associated phases. Theoretically, every person is a potential initiator of the Reference process, when he/she is facing a particular problem, which is manifesting as his/her need for Information, and it is formulated as a request for information. Through the dialogue with the user, the Librarian will master the initial question, select the research strategy and through the research process will arrive to the answer and will find the final solution. Nowadays, the Reference work is indispensable, despite all dramatic technological changes in our time and surrounding.

This Paper analyzes the Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules within the context of the genesis of the Anglo-American cataloguing tradition, from Panizzi's rules to global theoretical consistently implemented International Cataloguing Principles; the structure and organization of AACR2 is demonstrated and the main conceptual differences in relation with the National Cataloguing Rules (PPIAK) are indicated; the fundamental principles of the new cataloguing paradigm (AACR3) are highlighted: redefined Principles from Paris and the model of Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR).

Purpose: This paper proposes explaining institutional repositories (IRs) and open access, discussing the relationship of open access to IRs, and examining the possible roles of reference librarians in IRs. Design/methodology/approach: Key IR and open access concepts are clarified and critiqued. New organizational roles for reference libraries are suggested that build on their current functions. Findings: The IR concept is defined, and IRs are shown to be different from scholars' personal web sites, academic department/unit archives, institutional e-print archives, and disciplinary archives. Open access is defined and examined. While the vision of open access is clear, the implementation of the vision is less pure. Open access and IRs are not synonyms: IRs are best seen as an enabling technology for open access. Reference librarians must play a key role in IRs, and ten potential IR support activities for them are identified. Originality/value: This paper orients reference librarians, library administrators, and others to IRs and open access, providing a context for understanding how reference librarians' jobs may be transformed by the emergence of IRs.

Article proposes a methodology to developed electronic reference services, through use of instant messaging technologies in real time, including selection of the final users, technology and bibliographic resources that support librarian’s work. In the same way, it expects to conceptualize the Electronic Reference Service, integrating and defining the concepts of instant messaging, Service and Electronic Reference. Finally, it is exposed a case study about Electronic Reference Service developed for students of Master in Political Science of Universidad Tecnológica Metropolitana.

This article analyses digital reference services and offers definitions of the concept as well as recommendations about quality criteria and standardisation. A discussion follows covering the most important technologies from e-mail to web contact software that integrates e-mail, chat, MOO’s, videoconferencing and web co-navigation together with other functionality. The author describes the main projects developed in this area in the US and the UK, as well as specific experiences from Spain.

With the boom of certification of library services and in order to guarantee its quality for the society, evaluation of them has retaken an importance it should have never lost, for it allows determining the level of the achievements attained as well as the failures in which the service has incurred. In spite of its importance evaluation is still an activity reduced almost exclusively to counting users and loaned items, rather than a guide that can be used to improve any system or an information unit system. Evaluation is fundamental for Lancaster, King and Thoren in order to secure the fulfillment of library aims. This paper underlines its importance for the search service. Some techniques for evaluating this service and the characteristics of its personnel are provided here relating them with the fulfillment of the information needs of users. The paper concludes that the evaluation of the services is an indispensable research activity for decision making and also to establish information user needs.

As a partial result of a research project, mexicoarte database is presented to allow libraries and archives be aware of its existence and invite them to use it. mexicoarte makes possible to perform national and internationally electronic promotion of Mexico’s cultural wealth through the dissemination of several types of documents: books, articles, catalogs of expositions, illustrations, and in the future, book covers.

This paper is mainly related to digital reference services. Evaluation of these services, their difference from the traditional reference services, factors which cause their emergence, related technical and quantitative standards are presented. Additionaly, projects which are developed in this area, the importance of cooperation activities, application problems and how librarians approach to these issues are examined.

Although more and more libraries are offering electronic mail reference services, little information about these services has been reported. We conducted and exploratory survey to examine public library e-mail reference services and the patrons who use them. Data collection techniques included a questionnaire mailed to participating libraries and a Web-based questionnaire completed by library patrons. Data gathered included: (1) information on the provision and administration of e-mail reference services provided by public libraries across the United States; (2) characteristics of public library email reference patrons and their satisfaction with the service they received; and (3) classification of email reference questions received by public libraries. Characteristics of the e-mail reference services varied considerably, but the patrons, citing ease and convenience as the major reasons for using such services, were mostly satisfied with what they received.

This study investigates the use of criteria to assess relevant, partially relevant and not relevant documents. Each study participant identified passages within 20 document representations that were used in making relevance judgments, judged each document representation as a whole to be relevant, partially relevant or not relevant to their information need, and explained their decisions in an interview. Analysis revealed 29 criteria, discussed positively and negatively, used by the participants when selecting passages that contributed or detracted from a document's relevance. These criteria can be grouped into 6 categories: author, abstract, content, full text, journal or publisher and personal. Results indicate that multiple criteria are used when making relevant, partially relevant and not relevant judgments. Additionally, most criteria can have both a positive or negative contribution to the relevance of a document. The criteria most frequently mentioned by study participants in this study was content, followed by criteria concerning the full text document. These findings may have implications for relevance feedback in information retrieval systems, suggesting that users give relevance feedback using multiple criteria and indicate positive and negative criteria contributions. Systems designers may want to focus on supporting content criteria followed by full text criteria as this may provide the greatest cost benefit.

To conduct a library and information science research which takes as its object the activities grouped under the term reference, it is necessary to recognize the complexity of this object and build the right concepts to approach it. With the term reference a complex library activity -that can be addressed, at least from four different perspectives determined by the use of one or more key concepts- is designated. The concept of reference work allows to address the work of the reference librarian in providing service, which provides an important theoretical distinction between functions performed by people and services offered by the institution, and ascribes the activity to a broader notion that appears to be suitable to characterize it: the notion of assisting, which grants a place not only to each of the traditionally recognized reference and information service tasks but also to its creative and productive dimension, which in turn raises the possibility of a qualitative research approach.

This article was based on the authors´ experience as directors and editors of academic journals, participation in editorial committees, text arbitration, dictated lessons on article writing and writing in general and philological evaluation. Through these experiences, the authors have detected many difficulties in the writing of an article; therefore, they purpose a set of quality indicators and relevant information regarding the selection of the publication mode, general format, types and parts of the article; the construction of cohesiveness and coherence; text planification and paraphrase construction. They outline the elements that should be checked over before submitting an article as well as the estrategies to present it to a journal. With all these, they tend to details related to the article´s formal and pragmatic means. Both synthesis and analysis become tools for the development of paraphrasing; and therefore, approaching them has been considered relevant, mainly because it enables the gathering of information coming from diverse sources and its adequate utilization in a document. Finally, they emphasize the idea that writing is an act of communication through which, the author should colaborate with the potential readers offering them a cohesive, coherent, concise and plain text.

After a detailed review of the literature on the evaluation of reference services in academic libraries, we describe the evaluation process of the Reference Service of the University of Seville’s library, in both its onsite and virtual models, during two time spans in 2011. We analyse the results using an adapted version of the READ scale. The predominance of the system’s onsite model was confirmed, with the type of service characterized by short questions of a basic nature, quite evenly distributed between the morning and afternoon, with a duration of less than five minutes, with the questions coming predominantly from students and answered by non-specialist staff.

Virtual educational unit (12,5 hours). In: "Administración y Secretariado de Centros Sanitarios" (Virtual course. 375 teaching hours). Institutional author: Fundación Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED). Year 2013-2014.

Analysis of virtual reference services, their standandars and new technologies that have changed the tradicional practice at the library’s reference desk. Major American virtual reference services initiatives and their characteristics are described.

Among the digital reference services category, e-mail reference services have known the most rapid spreading inside the library world. This study analyses the main aspects of e-mail reference services (service parameters, elements of a query form, the characteristics of electronic messages sent during the reference process). Also, the advantages and disadvantages of this reference services are presented, suggesting a few strategies for rising their efficiency.

Use the search mechanisms for finding information in the Internet. National and international searching tools to research information in hipermedia pages in the Worl Wide Web. Formalarization of the syntax for searching information in the Internet.

For 2005, the Swiss National Library has experienced a national network for reference work based on its own virtual reference desk, SwissInfoDesk. In 2007, 22 libraries throughout Switzerland are collaborating to answer to requests coming from all over the world with the main topic "Switzerland". This virtual network is divided in categories and questions are sent from the National Library to the library which can reply to. The paper described why this network has been created, how it is organized and what could be its future.

Title: "The reference service and the reference librarian". Detailed theoretical presentation of a reference service and reference work. ¿What is it? ¿How did it develop? ¿Who does this reference work? and so on as well as the stages (the reference process) the reference librarían goes through in an attempt to answer effectively and economically the questions put forward by users.

We propose a model of search term selection process based on our empirical study of professional searchers during the pre-online stage of the search process. The model characterizes the selection of search terms as the navigation of different discourses. Discourse refers to the way of talking and thinking about a certain topic; there often exists multiple, diverse discourses on the same topic. When selecting search terms, searchers appear to navigate a variety of discourses, i.e., they view the topic of a client's search request from the perspective of multiple discourse communities, and evaluate and synthesize differences and similarities among those discourses when selecting search terms. Six discourses emerged as sources of search terms in our study. These discourses are controlled vocabularies, documents and domains, the practice of indexing, clients' search requests, databases and the searchers' own search experience. Data further suggest that searchers navigate these discourses dynamically and have preferences for certain discourses. Conceptualizing the selection of search terms as a meeting place of different discourses provides new insights into the complex nature of the search term selection process. It emphasizes the multiplicity and complexity of the sources of search terms, the dynamic nature of the search term selection process, and the complex analysis and synthesis of differences and similarities among sources of search terms. It suggests that searchers may need to understand fundamental aspects of multiple discourses in order to select search terms.

This study discusses the reasons that make possible the desintermediation as well as the new role that should be adopted by the information professional, at the same time as to serve for reflecting and highlighting the essential role of the information professional as intermediary between databases and scientific information and end-users.