By Steve Coffman"Going Live: Starting and Running a Virtual Reference Service "
Publisher: American Library Association | Pages:196| Date:2003-05-01 | ISBN:0838908500 | 1.5MB
Publisher: American Library Association | Pages:196| Date:2003-05-01 | ISBN:0838908500 | 1.5MB
Virtual reference entails real-life decisions, services, budgets, constraints, and opportunities. This book includes an overview of many questions that need to be answered when providing real-time, online reference service. Although the brief discussions of these issues are satisfactory, the most useful parts of the book are appendix A, "The Software Feature Checklist"; chapter 4, "Marketing Virtual Reference Services"; and Bernie Sloan's abridged version of his "Digital Reference Services Bibliography." Chapter 2 is a nice overview of what can be done and how to do it, from designing a project through staffing, costing, and copyright. The chapter on managing virtual reference reflects only one style of management, as does appendix B, "Sample Pre-employment Screening Test and Key"; these are of less value than the rest of the book. Somewhat expensive but potentially useful. RBB Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved