Here in Pennsylvania, Governor Rendell’s Office just announced our state’s new virtual reference service, “Ask Here PA.” http://papress.state.pa.us/parelease/data/1060803.003.htm
The 24/7 service opens officially on September 6, with than 90 libraries, including 20 academic libraries, participating and receiving training using the OCLC QuestionPoint Survey. The service will be administered by HSLC/AccessPA.
Here’s the plan:
Students and the public will be able to reach public librarians while college students and faculty will be helped by librarians from participating colleges and universities. Staff from the participating libraries will provide reference assistance to patrons during the day. An international cooperative of libraries will cover the overnight hours.
I look forward to creating a big link for my students, pointing to the service, and seeing how it is received. As you all know, I want “library” to be a screen on all my students’ home desktops, even if I cannot be there myself.
Interestingly, my students are a bit suspicious of the type of help that might be offered by librarians who don’t know their needs, our curricula and expectations, or their teachers’ requirements. I was incredibly flattered by these learners’ recognition of the customized help that we provide in school libraries. But convenience just might rule and I am bery grateful a librarian will be there when I cannot.
Back in May, our students participated in an IMLS focus group study conducted by colleague Marie Radford from Rutgers University and reported on in Library Garden blog: http://librarygarden.blogspot.com/2006/05/screenagers-focus-on-info-seeking.html.
A quote from a blog post describing the focus groups:
Many teens expressed the concern that the librarians in chat would not be interested in them or in their questions and might not have the right information for their school assignments. They clearly treasured the one-on-one personal relationships they had developed with their librarians and most were unwilling to give chat a try. When told that live chat reference was 24/7 in Maryland and NJ (PA is starting a statewide chat service in the near future) some eyebrows shot up as they liked this idea since some prefer to do homework late at night.
I’ll keep you posted as I observe.
