Virtural reference at the statewide level is alive and thriving. It is successful due to the fact that many small libraries have come together and unified. They share all the expenses therefore, giving them more opportunities to meet the needs of their population.
If a institution does not share the cost of virtural reference services it can shell out about $6000 - $12,000 for software and services.
Many benefits come out of sharing the cost of the services such as; services can be provided for longer hours, staff hours can be shared, the annual cost per school is reduced,increase software supplies and etc.
Institutions are targeting the young adults more now. They are the population that frequently use online services the most. Unfortunately, many students don't know about the services and the word must get out.
Read more about this collaborative adventure at:
Virtual Reference: Alive and Well
http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA401140.html
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3 comments:
As I stated last week as well, we as librarians need to get the information out there about virtual reference. We also need to get the information out there to our classroom teachers. It is such a great resource that our students do not know about.
Making Waves,
What an interesting article! Imagine providing virtual referencing services for the Navy. How exciting! I would think, however, that such services are highly specialized (provided by those who are knowlegeable of this branch of the armed forces). Nevertheless, the value of vitual referencing is clearly demonstrated in this article.
As for our students, we can inform them of virtual referencing services that are age-appropriate and provide well-researched and reliable information.
Making Waves,
This was an interesting article on the cost-effectiveness and viability of having virtual reference services available in libraries. There are obvious ramifications for the NYC school system if it were to embrace this concept in its school libraries.
For me it raises the question, "Would virtual reference be a viable service for school libraries to offer?" I ask this because the article pointed out the need for everyone to work together to reduce the costs of the software and hardware. Well, the NYCDOE seems to be undergoing changes that will make schools more individualized and autonomous. With so much disparity in organization/administartion, etc, how could we "get together" to make something like virtual reference work?
Manpower will be another big issue for us to consider here. School librarians have so much to do already, with little or no extra help in some cases, can they take on another task? Also, is it worth our while to offer this if the public libraries already do so?
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