News > February 19, 2004

By Justin Stevens

Old Gold and Black Reporter

The Z. Smith Reynolds Library has added a new online feature that allows students to have their research questions answered without leaving their dorm rooms.

Similar to instant messaging, this virtual reference service directs its users to a private chat session with a librarian where they can ask real-time questions such as how to get started on a paper or where to find a journal article.

The library is offering this service in conjunction with 10 other universities. All are members of the Association of Southeastern Research Libraries, which sponsors the project, the first regional one of its kind.This service, launched Feb. 2, is offered 12 hours a day and can be accessed through the library’s Web site under the “Ask a Librarian” link.

“Because most of our databases are accessed from people in their dorms, it helps that they don’t have to come into the library,” said Carol Cramer, an electronic resources librarian.

Cramer participated in the first live chat session with a student from Florida State University. A user of the program can ask pretty much anything that he or she would at a real reference desk. So far, librarians have been answering questions about how to find research materials or where to look for information on the Web. One user was trying to start a small business and needed help finding a grant.

Senior Daniel McGinley recently used the service for a project on counter-insurgency and uprisings in Iraq. He chatted with a librarian from the University of Kentucky who helped him research the topic.

“(She) was able to find some very valuable Web resources for me just using Google a lot more ably than I could,” he said.

After a session, users are sent an E-mail with a transcript of the entire conversation, which they can refer back to during their work.

The chat service is an upgrade over the existing “Ask a Librarian” feature where a student can E-mail questions. Elisabeth Leonard, one of the librarians that operates the system, believes that real-time conversations allow her to deal with more complex questions and also offer a more personalized alternative to E-mail.

“People ask what hours a specific librarian is in so they can come back and speak to them,” she said.

Coordinating the project with the other schools is another advantage. It allows for the site to be staffed for longer hours and on a more consistent basis and also opens the door to additional resources that other libraries may have.

“If we ever get stumped with something because we don’t have the resources for it, if we get to know these other libraries better, you can draw on (their) experience,” Leonard said.

The librarians also have plans to expand and improve the service in the future. Once they get to know the staff from the other schools, they hope they will be able to tell users what time to log on in order to talk with someone who specializes in the subject in which they are interested.

They also envision getting other schools involved, particularly ones in different time zones so that they can have someone on call 24 hours a day.