Live Reference
Initiatives in the UC and at UCLA:
Alice K. Kawakami,
Instructional Technology Coordinator, UCLA College Library
Eleanor Mitchell, Head, UCLA College Library
The University of California, System-wide:
Different UC campuses have different programs. A UC Task Force began work in April 2001 on digital reference initiatives.
The Task Force is charged with:
§ assessing role of digital reference and examining the key issues
§ investigating what other libraries are doing
§ sharing user feedbacks
§ building and sustaining useful tools for doing digital reference
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UCLA plans:
UCLA has been testing software for over a year in conjunction with MCLS, and started a live reference pilot project in March 2001. UCLA does have a testing group that meets Wednesday afternoons with librarians from the Undergraduate, Research and Biomedical libraries.
The pilot projects, running from March -June 2001, are at the College Library and the Biomedical Library.
(1) College Library is offering live reference 5 days a week, 2 hours a
day, staffed by 5 librarians. Their link is found at http://www.247ref.org/staging_portal/ucla/index.htm
(2) Biomedical Library offers live reference 2 days a week, Tuesdays and Thursday, 3-5 pm with all reference librarians
taking turns as part of reference hours duties. You can view their web page at http://www.247ref.org/staging_portal/ucla_biomed/
The testing group is working on the following:
(1) Product Development: Testers have helped develop the product by reporting problems and suggestions to the Cherry Hill programmers.
(2) Procedures & Protocols: As in traditional reference, a reference interview technique is utilized. Frequently-used messages are scripted for quick transmittal. These messages are in the form of a question to elicit a response from the user. Because of the lack of visual cues, the scripts ask the caller what he is seeing on his screen. The librarian lets the user know what to expect e.g. “I will be controlling your screen”. Libraries need to consider: What level of service to provide? What resources are to be used to answer questions?
(3) Fit with other services like email and phone reference: Digital Reference integrates with other services as users can be linked to document delivery, full-text, recall of items, reserves, SRLF materials etc.
Recent problems have been software instability, transcripts not always sent to the user and escort not always working. Hopefully a new server that will soon be installed on the campus will resolve these problems.
Assessment will include evaluating the pilot program, which ends June 2001. Possibilities for the future include expanding hours, using the service for consulting hours, focusing on particular resources (e.g. the online catalog), focusing on particular populations (e.g. General Education Cluster), or changing to different software.