American Library Association's Digital Reference Guidelines
The definition formulated by the American Library Association's (ALA) 2004 MARS Digital Reference Guidelines Ad Hoc Committee contains three components:
- "Virtual reference is reference service initiated electronically, often in real-time, where patrons employ computers or other Internet technology to communicate with reference staff, without being physically present. Communication channels used frequently in virtual reference include chat, videoconferencing, Voice over IP, co-browsing, e-mail, and instant messaging.
- While online sources are often utilized in provision of virtual reference, use of electronic sources in seeking answers is not of itself virtual reference.
- Virtual reference queries are sometimes followed-up with telephone, fax, in-person and regular mail interactions, even though these modes of communication are not considered virtual."
In January 2011 QuestionPoint and the American Library Association were in talks about offering a National Ask A Librarian service across the whole United States of America. At present the Ask services in the US are run at a local level.
Read more about this topic: Digital Reference
Famous quotes containing the words american, library, association and/or reference:
“I had such a wonderful feeling last night, walking beneath the dark sky while cannon boomed on my right and guns on my left ... the feeling that I could change the world only by being there.”
—Viorica Butnariu, Rumanian student at Bucharest University. letter, Dec. 23, 1989, to American friend. Observer (London, Dec. 31, 1989)
“With sighs more lunar than bronchial,
Howbeit eluding fallopian diagnosis,
She simpers into the tribal library and reads
That Keats died of tuberculosis . . .”
—Allen Tate (1899–1979)
“With all their faults, trade-unions have done more for humanity than any other organization of men that ever existed. They have done more for decency, for honesty, for education, for the betterment of the race, for the developing of character in man, than any other association of men.”
—Clarence Darrow (1857–1938)
“If we define a sign as an exact reference, it must include symbol because a symbol is an exact reference too. The difference seems to be that a sign is an exact reference to something definite and a symbol an exact reference to something indefinite.”
—William York Tindall (1903–1981)