Ms. Lindbloom’s presentation detailed the Ready for Reference Virtual Reference Desk, a 24/7 digital reference pilot project implemented by the Illinois Alliance Library System. She discussed the implementation process, evaluation of the first phase of the service, as well as current and future plans for this project.
The Ready for Reference (RFR) project is a live digital reference service project involving 8 academic libraries (all members of the Illinois Alliance Library Network). The project started in the summer of 2000 when interested parties met to discuss the concept for the project and form a committee. Lindbloom stressed that the participants have had a long history of collaboration in other areas. Some of the participants actually had previous experience with various live reference software products.
Initially the group set out to write a grant proposal asking for funding for a digital reference project that would provide service with limited hours. In the end they decided to shoot for the moon and ask for full funding for a 24/7 project. To their delight the project was funded by the Illinois State Library/Secretary of State’s Office and a Library Services and Technology Act Grant.
The group selected LSSI’s Virtual Reference Desk (VRD) product as their software, purchasing 3 “seats” for the group. Basic VRD software training was held the first week of January 2001 with other training occurring at the end of the month. The service was launched at the end of January 2001 using reference librarians from the participating libraries during normal library hours of operation. Service after hours and during times of peak use was contracted out to LSSI. Digital reference service is available to the following groups in priority order: people affiliated with the eight participation institutions; other ALS libraries; Illinois residents; and finally non-Illinois residents as possible.
The Ready for Reference project was publicized via e-mail to all faculty staff and students of the 8 participating institutions, print brochures, press releases sent to campus and community newspapers and TV stations, posters in the dorms, 2 ft. by 6 ft. banners, and placing the RFR icon on various websites.
Some additional training occurred in March where the focus shifted from learning how to use the software to the best methods of answering questions. As a follow-up to this training, one library has written a grant to bring in an instructor specializing in online reference training.
Bernie Sloan of the Graduate School of Library and Information Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign acted as project evaluator and came up with these preliminary findings:
They also discovered that the optimal staffing level is two librarians for each time period, that questions are not necessarily answerable within 10 minutes, and the questions ran the gamut of both complexity and subject matter.
Current RFR projects include updating the website and developing additional scripted messages and slide shows. They hope to continue the project through June of 2002, and will attempt to find additional partners (academic, special, public, and school) within the Alliance Library System as well as outside their area in other time zones.
Further information about this project can be found at the following web locations:
http://www.rsa.lib.il.us/ready/
Ready for Reference: Testing the Concept of Collaborative Live Interactive Reference
http://www.lis.uiuc.edu/~b-sloan/ready4ref.htm
Preliminary analysis of the RFR project conduced by Bernie Sloan of the Graduate School of Library and Information Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Summary prepared by Kristin Trefts, Meriam Library, California State University Chico