Internet Librarian

Internet Librarian

Julia Gelfand, Colby Riggs and Doris Helfer

The Internet Librarian Conference was held November 6-8, 2001 in Pasadena,California. This conference is part of the family of conferences sponsored by Information Today and is known as the Fall Conference often held on the west coast. Internet Librarian appears to draw a variety of attendees, from special or corporate, public and academic librarians, consultants, and many people associated with the information delivery trade, including some publishers,providers, vendors, aggregators, government agencies and technology support. Information Today www.infotoday.com is a conglomerate of resources for the information industry serving as a conference promoter, publisher of journals and books, purveyor of information services and trends in knowledge management. Having once been critical of commercial and non-society sponsored conferences, this author has come to find increasing value and focus at a conference such as the Internet Librarian for several reasons. Attendance is not of the masses that attend the annual conferences of the American Library Association or the Special Libraries Association. However, the opportunity for networking is definitely there, and the four-track system allows interested attendees to concentrate on a certain theme or to attend sessions of interest in related tracks. The presentations tend to offer a mix of case studies and practical advice while placing in a larger context the issues and trends. This year's tracks and subtracks at the Internet Librarian included:

• 1.

  Content management:

  • Intranets and portals.

  • Taxonomies.

  • Wireless application.

• 2.

  Navigating the Net:

  • Searching and searchers.

  • Virtual reference.

  • More on searching.

• 3.

  Webwizards' symposium:

  • Design and development.

  • Usability and interfaces.

  • Focus on Web tools.

• 4.

  Digital reality:

  • Strategies and services.

  • Training and e-learning.

  • Rights and contracts.

This author attended a full-day session of presentations in track 2, and this conference report highlights those panels and discussion on the theme day of virtual reference. In the past two years, there has been enormous interest in developing ways that different methods of virtual reference have been conducted. The most popular and widespread has been via e-mail. In many cases universally this online program has been called some permutation of "Ask a librarian" and now is known as a basic template in the reference menu of services in addition to the most traditional reference desk and research consultation programs offered at most academic and public libraries.

Building on the keynote presentation of the day that emphasized usability,it is no wonder that virtual reference has a firm place in the staple of library services. Libraries now honor and host a variety of technologies and new methods of communicating with users. As the first speaker, Steve Coffman from LSSI www.lssi.com noted in his session, "Virtual Reference: From Inception to Acceptance," "Reference had a place for more than 100 years in libraries. The Web has become a place to consult or go visit with an incredible and growing following, and thus fewer persons elect to come to the library." The Association of Research Libraries www.arl.orghas documented this for the largest segment of academic and public libraries in North America by a decline of 25 percent annually. Thus, the search engines are becoming the new source for information, but the problem remains that users still need help.

User satisfaction surveys indicate that it takes only 12 minutes to drive someone to the state of "search rage," where they are inundated with far too many irrelevant search outcomes and may not have the skills adequately to evaluate the results. This suggests why so many commercial search services have evolved in recent years, such as Ask Jeeves www.aj.comor Web Help http://www.webhelp.com/home. This latter example is one where the service utilizes a product that provides technology-enabled solutions that allow businesses or libraries to offer real-time customer service and support.

Ask Jeeves is supposed to be a kind of Internet butler ­ you ask a question and without hesitation Jeeves brings you the answer. Wehelp.com has launched the first Internet search engine that features real people helping Web surfers find just what they need in real time, thus bringing common sense and a personal touch to the Web. Both services are free and today entertain a range of competition in the marketplace and in technology developments that can be configured for a range of new service provision.

The latter introduces a chat function, which is the latest evolution and allows for interactive dialogue between user and information provider.

What do each of these new technologies provide?

• First, e-mail, an asynchronous exchange, lacks immediacy and sets up the scenario where no reference interview takes place, unless even more time passes before the user gets an answer. The librarian does all the work ­ offers sources and solutions.

• The next generation of virtual reference is Live Video Conferencing. This is not so successful, as technology does not yet easily support this, but we should stay very tuned to the frontlines as major developments are underway to make this more expedient and less cumbersome, with improved audio potential and video resolution.

• Chat or messenger software is widespread but offers limited functionality and probably works best in an exchange that is not a high traffic zone.

• Web contact center software was developed by e-commerce sites and can support high volume environments and has been successful in health care appointment centers, popular shopping sites, where more functionality such as pushing a page and form sharing and file sharing takes place.

What is prevalent in software that combines all of the above is that the transactions can be analyzed, queuing and routing can take place, a variety of scripts can be used and it requires virtually no or little download or configuration by the user at their computer. Coffman goes on to indicate that"Good software is not enough," and suggests that a virtual reference service must respond to:

• Network canvassing.

• Authentication issues.

• Supporting site licensing.

• Question tracking.

• Privacy protection.

• Ongoing training.

• Marketing.

• After-hours reference service.

The company that both Steve Coffman and Kay Henshall are affiliated with,LSSI, has many models of projects currently operational, including the first one outside of the USA at the University of Sydney. Henshall, the head trainer at LSSI, clearly stated that "training must change," and called her presentation,"Touchy-Feely Reference" and framed it in the "3Cs of customer service" as responding to caring, competence and communication skills. In order to achieve a high level of customer service and offer high performance in accuracy, training reviews the entire transaction of the interaction between user and librarian. Henshall suggested that some librarians are fearful of the implications of having the transaction available. However, if the profession were to consider other service professionals, such as lawyers, doctors and others who are held to high degrees of accountability where case notes or courtroom transcripts are taken, there should not be any surprises. This change in standard operations may require a rather steep paradigm shift where librarians must abandon the need to be right and better adopt the intention of service and be more open to the practice of teamwork. Malpractice insurance is also not common in librarians'professional work, but perhaps as our society become increasingly litigious it will have a role as information continues to be a valuable commodity the public wants.

Coffman concluded this session by using the famous metaphor, "if you build it, will they come?" He offered some marketing strategies that make virtual reference a natural expectation:

• Cover only an adequate number of hours ­ what is viable for the staff and realistic for the potential users.

• Take the service to the patron ­ place it on sites that already experience significant traffic, such as course pages, sites that promote other related services, etc.

• Establish links throughout the user community.

• Place links to the service inside databases, where users often need help and have questions.

• Develop some target services that specialize in niche users and resources.

Assuming that "they will will," how does a library handle or juggle all the reference activities:

• Rethink and evaluate all the reference services.

• Get a better understanding of reference and its costs.

• Distribute technology so that service can be offered at different sites distributing the resources and trained staff and hours of service.

• Consider outsourcing specialized subject-based reference work or other specialized needs.

The question everyone in the packed auditorium left with remains, "Is the reference desk the best place to conduct reference work?" Thus, software such as LSSI is both a "tool and a gizmo", for it transforms technology and user expectations, and common communication experiences such as how the telephone and fax machine have changed our daily lives.

The second presentation highlighted the "Q&A Café: A Real-Time Virtual Reference Model" and was presented by a team of librarians from the Redwood City, California Public Library who are members of the Golden Gateway Library Network that offers a 24/7 reference service. This live demonstration suggested some of the challenges both the librarian and user have in operating this service and achieving success. By asking specific questions, refinement of the reference interview takes place and utilizing the technologies fully to push pages, highlighting URLs, and having a scanner nearby to send print documentation is the combination of the reference function that leads to success. One should remember that the user has a shorter attention span when online, expecting instantaneous results. Librarians are urged to offer this service when they are adjacent to a wide range of resources ­ fast connectivity online, and being in the library close to the print resources, if the user does not have access to the online content.

The next session had two speakers who introduced their services. Barbara Pitney from King County Library System in the Seattle area discussed "Ask A Librarian Live" www.kcls.org/hh/hhlive1.html,which utilizes LivePerson software www.liveperson.com/and shared how that service has evolved. The helpful and constructive hints suggest the potential collaboration between public, school and academic libraries. Stacy Olkowski, Business and Economics Librarian at the University of Chicago www.lib.uchicago.edu/e/busecon/asklibrarian.htmlshared what it is like managing live reference. The UC experience is using LSSI software and Olkowski noted the differences between a service at an academic library and at other libraries. There are indeed different user populations to contend with who may not all have equal access to resources ­ alumni,unaffiliated users, etc. Issues about licensing are more critical in this setting, as are privacy clauses and other practices that need to be in compliance with related library and campus services.

So, what is coming down the road? Our next issue of LHTN will highlight the full Virtual Reference conference, www.vrd.org/conferences/VRD2001,but this series of presentations at the Internet Librarian conference suggests that chat technology will soon be replaced by "Voice over IP" and there will be another series of new activities in the line-up called virtual reference.

Julia Gelfand(jgelfand@uci.edu) is the Applied Sciences & Engineering Librarian at the University of California, Irvine Libraries and co-editor of LHTN).

This author attended a full-day session of presentations in track 3, and this conference report highlights those panels and discussion on the theme day of "Webwizards' symposium - usability and interfaces." The World Wide Web has been used in libraries since 1994 as a viable medium to present information and services to our patrons. Although this technology has been used for a while, we still are discovering how our users retrieve information and designing appropriate interfaces for better usability.

The keynote speaker, Eric Shaffer, the CEO of Human Factors International,set the stage for the usability theme track and presented a thought-provoking session titled, "Library Science and Usability Engineering: Making the Net Effective. Shaffer spoke of the work that has begun between the library science and usability engineering communities in discovering the value and accessibility of information on the Internet. He described how specific design decisions could limit access to information.

At this stage in the Internet development, it is not wireless, high bandwidth or new hardware and software that are the "commodities", but the ability to build applications that are useful, said Schaffer. It is with usability testing that we build Web sites that are useful. He said we must recognize that usability testing is an iterative process, that we will not get it right the first time. He stressed we need to follow a process which is a user-centered process and to institutionalize usability in order to meet the informational needs of our users.

Anne Platoff, the Web master at Arizona State University, described a simple solution for gathering user feedback about library Web sites in her presentation, "User Testing Made Easy". Platoff stated that libraries do not have to hire high paid consultants to gather feedback about library Web sites from our students, faculty and staff. She described cheap user testing that was conducted in house, which provided quality results.

She said you do not have to "reinvent the wheel" when developing usability testing in your library. She mentioned two great sources for Web usability design information ­ any material written by Jacob Nielsen and Jared Spool,the "gurus" of Web usability testing. She suggested Jerry Rubin's book, Handbook of Usability Testing for a quick introduction to the field.

In keeping with the desire to keep the testing simple, Platoff conducted surveys in what she called the "hallway" method. The tests were done at stand-up PC workstations in the reference rooms. Patrons, on arrival to the reference room, were asked to provide feedback on the new design of the library Web site. Short, task-oriented questions were asked of library users that would not take more than five minutes. The use of this method was effective because they were able to get feedback from a variety of people, as opposed to conducting a formal survey in which the participants tend to be more self-selecting.

The second session on usability testing was "Redesigning the Information Playground: Kansas City Public and California State University Usability Testing" by David King and Susan Thompson. These two case studies provided additional information on how to gather valuable information from our users when patrons use our library Web sites. King, the Information Technology Librarian at Kansas City Public Library, gathered user information by traditional methods but uniquely utilized the process of Web log file analysis for usability testing. The library used two programs (LiveStats and Web Trends) to track log files for the library Web site. The programs created statistics for those files on the Web sites. The statistics provided information such as which pages were viewed, the most and least popular pages, user sessions and the types of Web browsers patrons used.

Thompson, the Library Systems Coordinator at California State University in San Marcos, described another unique method for gathering information about patrons using our library Web sites. The library used remote PC screen viewing software to observe first hand the PC screen activities of the library users being tested. The software, Timbuktu and NetMeeting, allowed the unobtrusive observation of the test subjects. The software allows the tester to see the PC screen of the user in real time. This remote screen-sharing software is used in collaborative reference projects. In this application of the software the program revealed information that might not be observed in a traditional testing environment. Valuable navigation information like selection clicks, content typed in text boxes, hesitations in cursor movements, pauses to read pop-up descriptions and the use of the back button and help screens can be observed.

ColbyRiggs(cmriggs@uci.edu)is a Systems Librarian at the University of California, Irvine Libraries and co-editor of LHTN).

This author attended an evening general session, "The Tasini Decision: The End of Full Text as We Know It?". Stephen Abram, IHS Micromedia Ltd, served as moderator as Jonathan Tasini, National Writers Union, Steve Arnold, Arnold Information Technologies, Carol Ebbinghouse, Western State University, Michael Traynor, Cooley Godward, LLP, James Barcelona, ProQuest, Simon Bradstock,Factiva and George Plosker, Gale Group discussed the effects and implications of the Tasini decision on the databases librarians and their patrons currently search.

Stephen Abram asked the database producers on the panel how many articles has been removed from their databases. Most stated the totals removed represented less than half of 1 percent of their total databases. Jonathon Tasini,professing his admiration for librarians and their contributions, said he brought the suit simply because he was standing up for freelance writers' rights and against what he saw as theft by publishers who resold the information without fairly compensating writers. Carol Ebbinghouse questioned how accurately we can rely on database providers to determine who is or is not a freelancer. It is clear when the databases were originally designed that no thought was given to tracking freelance writer status or even considering electronic distribution rights. Redesigning databases to monitor this will be very costly.

Tom Hogan, president of Information Today, stated that publishers are not making large sums of money on ancillary right. The amounts involved are really pennies, but costs in tracking these digital rights would be heavy. Simon Bradstock asked the audience members how much more they would pay to accommodate these increased costs associated with freelancers' digital rights.

Mr Tasini pointed out the $55 billion to $600 billion lawsuit was based on a model of what might be involved in payouts based on a litigation model. The entire question of who is liable and to whom for how much is yet to be determined, but affirmed his belief that this issue can be solved by negotiations with publishers. He also affirmed his conviction in the Constitution's statement on copyright protection.

The question was asked if publishers were creating bibliographic citations for deleted articles so at least a record would be available of the articles'existence in print. George Plosker replied that for the most part citations and some abstracts, if they were part of the added value enhancements from Gale,would indeed remain. Debate focused on what could be done with the resources from database vendors to accommodate selective full-text removal and the subsequent replacement with appropriate citations. While such software adjustments might be made, there was no certainty all freelance records could be identified without considerable and intensive manual intervention. Such action would be costly and time consuming. Some major newspapers decided to remove a potentially huge liability and remove their entire archives from commercial vendors and their own Web sites prior to the point when the papers could be assured that contractual agreements were in full compliance with the Tasini decision. When it became apparent this kind of archiving might be a violation of copyright, these articles, reports and columns were removed. Someone referred to these databases now as swiss cheese and Steve Arnold proclaimed at the end of the session that the golden age of databases is gone.

Our ability to retrieve vital documents and articles is diminishing. We are entering a new era of online access. Ultimately, it is our patrons and researchers who will suffer if important articles are removed from databases. The implications for historians are staggering unless at least citations are left in the database.

Doris Small Helfer(doris.helfer@csun.edu) is Chair,Technical at California State University, Northridge, Northridge, CA.