Post here a description of how your library has successfully integrated QuestionPoint into your reference workflow to facilitate service to patrons, increase management efficiency,  or create broader visibility for the library.

Culture Minister Launches AskScotland Virtual Reference Service

Monday 1 June 2009

An interactive digital reference service that will enable people all over the world to get answers to questions about Scotland was today launched by Michael Russell MSP, Minister for Culture, External Affairs and the Constitution.  More . . .  

The Montana Virtual Reference Cooperative

The January issue of Computers in Libraries: Virtual Reference has run a terrific article, by Betsy Harper Garlish, on the Montana cooperative group.  You can read it here.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Library 

How do libraries in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers support troops in Iraq and Afghanistan? What information do they provide to deployed units in Kosovo, Egypt, and other areas with few services? How do USACE libraries contribute to Gulf Coast recovery efforts?  Read about this critical service at http://www.oclc.org/services/brochures/questionpointcasestudyusarmy.pdf.  (July 2006)

The Carnegie Mellon University Library

Carnegie Mellon University has been the largest single contributor to the Global Reference Network, since its introduction in June of 2002.  Since August 2002, the library has answered over 11% of the questions submitted to the GRN.   

Questions answered for the Global Reference Network are automatically submitted to the Global Knowledge Base.  There they are reviewed and selected if appropriate to a global audience and copyedited for consistency.  Carnegie Mellon, alone, has contributed 302 active GKB records resulting from its work within the Network.

The QuestionPoint community is truly indebted to the Carnegie Mellon University and its librarians.  Head reference librarian Jean Alexander provided the following information about the library, its mission, and the philosophy underlying its outstanding contributions to global libraries:

“Since its founding in 1900 in Pittsburgh by industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, Carnegie Mellon University has been a pragmatic institution focused on finding real solutions to the problems facing society. This philosophy has guided the library’s participation in the Global Network since its inception in October 2002. We were experimenting with various types of digital reference, including e-mail and chat, so it was natural to want to be part of LC’s pioneering effort to erase barriers between different types of libraries, partner with libraries in countries around the world, and change the traditional attitude that a reference librarian should be as self-sufficient as possible.

“Carnegie Mellon set its subject profiles high, especially in areas of excellence such as technology, science, arts and business. Although our print collections are small and uneven for a high-powered research university, the digital environment allows us to answer most questions. Questions are answered by subject specialists in the Arts, Engineering & Science, and Hunt Libraries, often with mutual consultation. Referrals come in from the Library of Congress, academic and public libraries about equally. Some of our most challenging questions have been technical or statistical in nature, such as those on voting habits and religious conviction, slot machines, semiconductors or the life span of a skyscraper. Others have a human interest angle, such as the favorite foods of Martin Luther King, the phrase ‘No Irish Need Apply,’ fairy tales in art, or the language of weather forecasts.

“The most satisfying aspect of the Global Network, however, is not the questions themselves, but the human contact. When a request for information—about government, say, or polar engineering—comes to us from a country where English-language sources are scarce, it seems almost miraculous to be able to provide practical help from a distance. We also relish the comments and research strategies documented by other librarians.

“Collaborative reference has unexpected benefits beyond the satisfaction of user needs. It broadens the range of questions that the library normally receives and enriches the patron base, providing challenging experience for trainees and veterans alike. By making questions and answers public, it raises the professional standard. Knowledge of new strategies, technologies, and resources can be spread quickly and communicated through practice rather than precept. The Global Network has become an exciting learning community, a model of communication between learners and experts.”

—Jean Alexander 

The New York Supreme Court Criminal Law Library

The New York Supreme Court Criminal Term Library of New York County (sometimes referred to as the New York Criminal Law Library) is located in lower Manhattan near the Brooklyn Bridge, City Hall, and State and Federal courthouses.  It is one of several Supreme Court libraries located throughout the State of New York, which operate under the auspices of the New York Unified Court System.

Although its primary mission is to provide reference and research support to personnel of the Criminal Term, its actual responsibilities and obligations are quite broad.  Using its various collections in all formats, including digital, in conjunction with various web and online services, including a website atand a weblog, this library functions as both an information repository and an information service.  These resources and services enable it to reach out to patrons both local and worldwide, as time and resources permit. Part of the library’s responsibility is to provide support as needed and operational oversight to the New York County Public Access Law Library, which is charged with serving those members of the public who need law-related information.

In order to discharge these responsibilities with limited staff, it has been necessary for the library to work cooperatively with library consortia and other groups to provide the added resources and services required to maintain an acceptable level of service. One of the organizations that has been especially helpful to us is the Metropolitan New York Library Council (METRO).  The library has been a member of METRO since 1981.  It was through METRO that we first learned of QuestionPoint and were invited to participate in a 2002 pilot project.  With some initial apprehension we accepted the offer and became an active participant in the latter part of that year.

Despite some initial reservations that we might not be able to keep up with expectations and workflow, the use of QuestionPoint has been quite successful for us.  It serves as a useful and important adjunct to our other web-based services in both reaching out to our patrons and through its referral features.  It enables us to augment our resources in ways otherwise impossible.  For example on more than one occasion we have used QuestionPoint to search worldwide for materials that would otherwise have been unobtainable.  In order to make it work for us, however, we have needed to avoid some of the features that are essential to others.   We do not use chat or any form of instant messaging because we simply do not have the appropriate staff resources to make this work satisfactorily for us.  We have not, however, found the lack of chat a limitation at all; for us QuestionPoint is a very important virtual reference service that we hope to continue and collaborate with in the future.

 -- David Badertscher, Principal Law Librarian and Director of the Library, with Ted Pollack (June 2006) 

The People's Network

Enquire an online reference collaborative linking 85 public library authorities and over 400 librarians, was launched by The People's Network in England in June.  By linking with U.S. and Canadian libraries via the QuestionPoint 24/7 Reference Cooperative, the service now delivers live assistance to the UK public 24 hours a day, seven days a week.   

The Enquire service has compiled a useful set of resources for their users.   The Network invites QuestionPoint users to take a look at its shared member resources page.

Another advantage the Enquire service brings to the QuestionPoint 24/7 community is their existing database of already answered questions.  As the Enquire staff add records to the Global Knowledge Base, that system-wide resource grows ever more useful with reusable information!  Enquire added over 600 records during its first few months active in QuestionPoint, in 2005. [As of November 2007, Enquire has nearly 4,300 GKB searchable records attributed to it.]

The People's Network Enquire service is funded by the UK's Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA), managed by Co-East, a libraries partnership in the East of England and staffed by public librarians from more than 60 local authorities, all of whom have signed up to pioneer this new online service. "This is a demonstration of how the digital revolution can improve one of the greatest traditions of the public library," says Chris Batt, Chief Executive of MLA. 

"The Library of Congress created the Collaborative Digital Reference Service (CDRS) in 2000, and then collaborated with OCLC in early 2001 to develop QuestionPoint and the Global Reference Network.  Since then, the Library has maintained its own internal consortium of 24 active profiles, representing each of the Library's reading rooms, as well as several other divisions with expertise in areas such as Preservation, Collections Access, Loan and Management and Cataloging. The Library of Congress is also plays an active role in the Global Reference Network, the expansion of the QuestionPoint Knowledge Base, and in monitoring the QuestionPoint Help account.

QuestionPoint provides the technical backbone for the Library's Ask A Librarian Service [http://www.loc.gov/rr/askalib/], which handled nearly 60,000 reference inquiries in 2005. The Library receives the bulk of its reference inquires via Web forms, although several divisions do offer live chat (QP basic html-based chat) for several hours each weekday afternoon.

Inquiries about the Library's collections and services generally run the gamut--- from patrons wondering why they cannot access the full-text of books they have found in the Library's online catalog-- probably a familiar question to most librarians, these days-- to inquiries from scholars at all levels seeking materials to clarify and/or confirm historical, literary or other scholarly hypotheses; questions from individuals seeking materials such as early film footage, photographs, sound recordings of historical periods, historical figures, and even their own ancestors to bring their projects-- scholarly, personal or professional-- to life.

The Library of Congress receives a high volume of questions, and because of the complexity and variety of its collections and organizational structure, many of the questions it receives may require input from subject specialists in multiple divisions. QuestionPoint enables librarians from Library of Congress divisions to seamlessly refer questions to each other - to tap into the rich collective expertise of LC reference specialists, and efficiently share that expertise, and the Library's collections with members of the public and colleagues at other institutions throughout the world...."

--Laura Gottesman, Digital Reference Librarian, Library of Congress (February 2006)  

Zentral- und Landesbibliothek Berlin

A long-time QuestionPoint member, the Zentral- und Landesbibliothek Berlin has participated in the Global Reference Network since mid-2002. 

Click http://www.oclc.org/services/brochures/questionpointcasestudyberlin.pdf to read more about their innovative service using QuestionPoint.

 National Library of Australia 

The NLA's AskNow service celebrated its 5th birthday in August 2007.  

Standing, (L to R) Anna, Rachele, Sue, Catherine, Rhona & Elizabeth

Each operator and each CEO of a partner insitution was awarded a "stress star." 

 The New York Public Library - Ask Librarians Online 

The staff at Ask Librarians Online, from left to right: Marcia Osofsky, Bernard van Maarseveen, Harriet Shalat, Alison Armstrong, Sharon Rickson, Tony Cheung. 

Why did you decide to implement QuestionPoint? What challenges were you facing at the library?

We first started with QP Chat, liked it, and when NYPL’s in-house online e-mail server crashed and could no longer be maintained by our technology department, we shifted to QP’s e-mail reference. We needed an easy to use, open, integrated, robust and reliable virtual reference software and we got it with QP. We haven’t regretted our decision even for a New York minute.

How are you currently using QuestionPoint in your library or group (web forms, chat, cooperative coverage, etc.)?

We use e-mail and chat (see NYPL’s Ask Librarians Online Web site: http://www.nypl.org/questions/). We use QP to refer questions to The Library’s specialized departments, and rely heavily on QP’s local and global Knowledge Bases.

What part of QuestionPoint are you using today in your library/group and what have you found most helpful? 

We use e-mail and QP’s standard chat (HTML version). We receive roughly 1,000 to 1,100 e-mail queries and 600 to 700 chats per month. The supremely easy to use QP software helps us efficiently track and respond to this tremendous volume of questions. The simple to search Knowledge Base serves as a powerful tool to continuously improve the caliber of our answers and referrals.

How has your reference service changed in the last year and what role has QuestionPoint played in it?

Within a few months of adopting QP in late 2003, our statistics jumped from 25-30 e-mail questions a week to at least that amount each day. While the volume of questions has since grown more slowly (about 5 % per year), the quality of the answers we are able to provide has continued to improve greatly, in part due to QP’s Knowledge Base. In addition, QP’s customer survey tools have also helped us better understand and respond to our patrons’ needs.

 How did you market your QuestionPoint Service? (Press release, bookmark ads, link to your service from community web sites) 

Our original Ask Librarians Online service was inaugurated with press releases and articles in our Library’s bulletins. Currently, our Ask Librarians Online service is linked to from nearly all of NYPL’s Web pages. Our service has been profiled in newspapers and magazines, including the New York Sun, Crain’s New York Business, and Delta Airlines’ Shuttle Sheet.

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