Florida's Ask a Librarian service (http://www.askalibrarian.org) brings virtual reference to users at their moment of need via the Internet. Ask a Librarian is a growing service with 76 participating libraries including public, school, four-year, and community college libraries. The following article describes how Ask a Librarian was developed…

Reviews relevant literature dealing with reference service to children and summarizes the developmental stages of children that can influence the interactions between librarians and children. Includes data from observations and interviews of five librarians from a children's room in a Florida public library. (Author/LRW)

Soon after AskALibrarian, Florida's Statewide Virtual Reference Desk, began to offer Chat Reference to the public in 2003, a Quality Assurance Workgroup was established to ensure that the service patrons received would be friendly, accurate, and adequate. To make certain that best practices were used in answering the real time questions, two…

Describes the Government Information Service of Florida's Palm Beach County Library System (PBCLS). Highlights include models for service, the need for specialized government services, costs versus benefits, the Question-Response Service and Government Web site, and keys to success. (AEF)

Introduction: This study investigated unmonitored referrals in a nationwide, collaborative chat reference service. Specifically, it examined the extent to which questions are referred, the types of questions that are more likely to be referred than others, and the level of user satisfaction with the referrals in the collaborative chat reference…

The Assessing Quality on Digital Reference team conducted two site visits at Florida Libraries in August 2001. The objectives of these visits were to: document how digital reference services are currently being planned for, delivered, and evaluated in libraries; understand how "quality" in digital reference is defined in these…

From November 1992 through May 1993, a series of staff development and training workshops were presented as part of the project, "Developing Library Services for Young Adults." The workshops included: "Redirecting Young Adult Behavior" (Glenna O. Auxier & Bob Perchalski); "The Youth Services Librarian and the Law"…

Describes the provision of library instruction and reference services to students enrolled in distance learning courses at 73 Florida-based colleges and universities by the Florida Distance Learning Reference and Referral Center (RRC). Explains the use of chat software which allows real-time virtual reference assistance that supplements email,…

Outlines the provisions of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990 in regard to libraries. Discusses the responsibilities libraries have in hiring disabled persons and providing services, accommodations, and telecommunications, and describes ADA compliance activities in Florida. (96 references/notes) (EA)