WE JUMPED ON THE LIVE REFERENCE BANDWAGON, AND WE LOVE THE RIDE!

Our reference numbers were declining, and we wanted to offer live help online. But as a medium-sized library with limited resources, we knew we couldn't go it alone. That's when the 24/7 Reference bandwagon rolled into town. Patrons were arriving in droves to use our Internet stations. Web page statistics were skyrocketing. Remote accesses to databases were escalating. We were busier than ever. But our reference questions were steadily decreasing. We began to wonder how we, a medium-sized public library with a limited staff, could provide a librarian's expertise to our online community members whenever they needed information? We discovered that a real-time reference collaborative would require small commitments of staff time and money, and decided to become players on the live reference bandwagon.