Seekers of information in libraries either go through a librarian intermediary or they help themselves. When they go through librarians they must develop their questions through four levels of need, referred to here as the visceral, conscious, formalized, and compromised needs. In his pre-search interview with an information-seeker the reference…

The creation of an instant messaging (IM) service is described. The challenges encountered in developing, launching, and maintaining the project are examined and include technical support, archiving, balancing different formats, privacy, assessment, training, and the effectiveness of the IM channel. The process of choosing an aggregator and a…

Academic libraries have traditionally collected reference statistics using hash marks on paper. Although efficient and simple, this method is not an effective way to capture the complexity of reference transactions. Several electronic tools are now available to assist libraries with collecting often elusive reference data--among them homegrown…

This article discusses a service quality study conducted in the Pennsylvania State University Libraries. The Wisconsin-Ohio Reference Evaluation Program survey was selected as a valid, standardized instrument. We present our results, highlighting the impact on reference training. A second survey a year later demonstrated that focusing on…

"ARL" is the bimonthly report on research library issues and actions from ARL (Association of Research Libraries), CNI (Coalition of Networked Information), and SPARC (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition). "ARL" reports on current issues of interest to academic and research library administrators, staff, and…

Ask Here PA is Pennsylvania's new statewide live chat reference and information service. This article discusses the key strategies utilized by Ask Here PA administrators to recruit participating libraries to contribute staff time to the service, the importance of centralized staff training, the main aspects of staff training, and activating the…

Reference e-mail continues to be a vital reference service. This article studies the trends in reference e-mail use over an eight year period. Usage statistics are analyzed particularly in light of the marketing of the service via changes in the location of the service on the official university libraries' Web pages. Included are recommendations…