A Study Of Digital Reference Service In The Library: Theory And Practice

Digital reference service (DRS), a succession, extension and new development of traditional reference in web environment, is a new library service emerged in the middle and late 1990's abroad. It utilizes the advantages of Internet to provide convenient, rapid and efficient Q & A services. In today's environment of "Web is the King", users have changed greatly in their information needs and how to use the library. As a result, they urge the library to provide reference service on the web to deal with the various problems during their use of information. DRS is a requisite of deepening and innovating library service in Internet era.This paper discusses some important issues associated with implementing DRS in libraries from both theory and practice. Theoretically, the paper looks at the evolution from traditional reference to digital reference, the research and practice development of DRS in China and abroad; Practically, the model, the quality control, the evaluation and operational framework of DRS are discussed.The paper, based on brief introduction to the concept, origin and evolution of reference service, expounds the meanings, constituents, procedures, roles and significances of DRS, and compares DRS with traditional reference service in similarities, differences, relationship, attitudes of users and librarians. Following that is the review of the literature concerned, the research focuses and associated progress. Typical commercial reference websits, non-commercial reference websites and library reference websites are described, 4 different kinds of reference websites are experimented and analyzed.The paper epagoges and expatiates five models of DRS, that is reference service based on e-mail, real-time interaction, web collaboration, multiple model co-existence and automatic solution.Quality control is the key to success of DRS. Technical standards, behavior norms, inquiry limitations, reference specialists, the use of reference sources, the quality of answers, mode of responses, and time limit are discussed.Finally, in view of the requirements of building a framework of DRS and put into operation, the paper proposes 22 issues to be considered in 4 facets and to be solved in management, technology, personnel and law.The whole paper is based on the questionnaires investigating 331 research users' needs and behaviors, as well as 21 large libaries in China and 9 libraries abroad, to discuss the current issues and solutions in implementing DRS in China, through comparison and analysis.43 diagrams, 19 tables and 6 appendices are included.