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Members of the public can now use the World Wide Web to seek answers to reference questions from librarians around the world, including some at college libraries. QuestionPoint, a new service developed by the Library of Congress and the OCLC Online Computer Library Center may make some visits to the library unnecessary.
Members of the public can now use the World Wide Web to seek answers to reference questions from librarians around the world, including some at college libraries. QuestionPoint (http:// www.questionpoint.org), a new service developed by the Library of Congress and the OCLC Online Computer Library Center may make some visits to the library unnecessary.
A patron gains access to QuestionPoint through a local library's Web site. A question is routed to local libraries first. If a user's local library isn't open, the question is sent to an open library elsewhere -- one that has strengths in disciplines that match the nature of the question. A librarian picks up the question and helps the patron find an answer. QuestionPoint offers a reduced subscription price for libraries that agree to help answer its inquiries.
Part of the drive behind the project is to put libraries online, because many users are going to the Internet for research. "People now are staying at home and not going to libraries," says Diane N. Kresh, director of public-service collections at the Library of Congress. "Why not have libraries be really visible on the Web, so that people can go to library-based search systems and networks and get information that's credible, accurate, and objective, which you can't necessarily get from Ask Jeeves?"
"If people sitting at home access information through a Web- based information service run by libraries, it will probably raise the visibility of their local library," she says.
Staying Away From Libraries?
About 100 academic, public, private, and national libraries have signed up to participate. Some 260 libraries have been part of a similar free program called the Collaborative Digital Reference Service, or CDRS, which was not open to the public.
CDRS shut down once QuestionPoint began running.
Ms. Kresh calls QuestionPoint a revved-up version of CDRS, giving users more options when posing questions. But the new program will cost libraries money. Individual libraries can sign up for annual subscriptions for a maximum of about $2,000.
Libraries that are part of consortiums would pay much less for the service. Chip Nilges, director of new-product planning for OCLC, says future versions of QuestionPoint will offer software that will allow librarians and patrons to communicate through audio and video programs. Foreign-language versions are also being planned.
News of QuestionPoint kicked up some dust on COLLIB-L, an e-mail discussion list for college librarians. Some said the new service gives patrons yet more incentive to stay away from the libraries themselves.
Survey of Users
Mr. Nilges responds by saying that "it's a fact that users often opt to begin their search outside of the library." He adds that OCLC is not marketing QuestionPoint directly to the public but to libraries, which will in turn give their patrons access to the service. He cites a survey that OCLC did about a year ago, in which most respondents said they had started their research with online search tools.
"We need to meet the patrons where they're looking for information, whether that's inside the library portal or outside the library portal," he says. "We need to find a way to make our members available to them."
But some librarians are not persuaded. Barbara Fister, of Gustavus Adolphus College, in St. Peter, Minn., says that the new service is a product of "Jeeves envy," referring to the online question-answering service Ask Jeeves.
Ms. Fister maintains that librarians and people at OCLC shouldn't try to offer a competitive service, and she predicts that QuestionPoint is going to be "a major market bomb."
"It's providing something completely different than what you can get at a reference desk," Ms. Fister says.
"This sends the message that you can go online and get your reference done -- and that you don't need a library for that. In a higher-education market, that is so dead wrong. ... I look at the reference desk as a place where teaching happens."
(Copyright Jun. 28, 2002 by The Chronicle of Higher Education)