Research is divided about the potential of e-service to bridge communication gaps, particularly to diverse user groups. According to the existing body of literature, e-service may increase or decrease the quality of service received. This study analyzes the level of service received by different genders and ethnic groups when public librarians answer online reference queries. Quality of e-service was evaluated along three dimensions: responsiveness, reliability, and courtesy. This study found no significant differences among different user groups along any of these dimensions, supporting the argument that the virtual environment facilitates equitable service and may overcome some challenges of diverse user groups.

The scenario planning method is used to explore several possible futures for digital reference services. Using two dimensions - funding sources and automation - four different scenarios are developed. Common needs across all four scenarios drive a discussion of both current and future research needs, and are used to position all components from this digital reference research agenda book in a common context.

Virtual reference, which allows users to connect easily with librarians online, is becoming popular. Librarians answer thousands of questions every day over the Internet. As the service matures, professional associations publish standards that provide professional guidelines to improve the quality of the services. This article focuses attention on the quality of these e-services in light of professional and ethical standards in the field. It examines the extent to which librarians adhere to professional and ethical guidelines and the role that virtual reference plays in providing services to diverse user groups. First, it discusses adherence to the professional standards and shows that the professional behaviors of librarians vary depending on user, institution, and request types. Then, it discusses the extent to which librarians provide equitable online reference services to diverse users groups and the inconsistent findings from empirical research.

Research is divided about the potential of e-service to bridge communication gaps, particularly to diverse user groups. According to the existing body of literature, e-service may increase or decrease the quality of service received. This study analyzes the level of service received by different genders and ethnic groups when public librarians answer online reference queries. Quality of e-service was evaluated along three dimensions: responsiveness, reliability, and courtesy. This study found no significant differences among different user groups along any of these dimensions, supporting the argument that the virtual environment facilitates equitable service and may overcome some challenges of diverse user groups.

While the racial diversity of academic library users continues to grow, research on the effects of this diversity remains scarce. This study looks at similarities and differences between non-traditional Caucasian and African American library users through content analysis of ninety-four virtual reference transactions.

The attributes of education in a digital neighborhood have warranted a community of teachers on one end with shared curriculum and teaching materials and another community of students with distance and distributed learning on the other end. There is a different kind of ecology emerging and the library professionals have the opportunity to create a world without borders, making everything available to everyone anytime, anywhere. Roles of libraries have changed from being traditional to exist as hybrid or electronic libraries. In turn, the Library and Information Science (LIS) professionals have become intelligent filters of information and contribute to the libraries to emerge as â Knowledge Resource Centersâ . Creating successful e-information services for its demanding clientele has become their major challenge. One such case study of e-information services provided by the Science Campus (Guindy Campus) Li-brary of University of Madras is focused in this paper. The Campus Library caters to the re-search community of Schools of Life, Physical, Chemical, Earth Sciences and an array of re-searchers (members) from industries. Periodic discussions with experts, faculty and research scholars have necessitated the Library to enhance research with Information Gateways on spe-cific themes. Subject Gateways on Biomedical Sciences, Life, Chemical, Physical and Inter-disciplinary Sciences are compiled periodically and made available on the intranet in turn making its clientele access the sources on the internet from their desktop. They not only sup-plement research but also new popular courses introduced, thrust of the University programs and so on. The Gateway focused here is â Nutraceuticalsâ which is a component of the Gate-ways on â Biomedical Sciencesâ . The methodology of information aggregation from the Inter-net, evaluating their validity and organizing them for access, the strategies used to market the e-service, such as organizing user education and information literacy programs are discussed. Methods of evaluation of the service provided are analysed to improve the same. The chal-lenges of the career to develop essential skills to combat technology have compelled the pro-fessionals at the Library to get trained and update their technical expertise. Thus the Library tries to support the evolutionary convergence of Library Services, Technology and the Clien-tele.

The difference between a digital library and a library with which a digital reference service is affiliated is discussed, and digital reference in these contexts is defined. There are several issues involved in integrating digital reference service into a digital library environment, but two that are unique to the intersection between digital libraries and digital reference: collection development of previously-answered questions, and presentation of specialized subsets of the materials in the digital library's collection. These two issues are explored.

Virtual reference, which allows users to connect easily with librarians online, is becoming popular. Librarians answer thousands of questions every day over the Internet. As the service matures, professional associations publish standards that provide professional guidelines to improve the quality of the services. This article focuses attention on the quality of these e-services in light of professional and ethical standards in the field. It examines the extent to which librarians adhere to professional and ethical guidelines and the role that virtual reference plays in providing services to diverse user groups. First, it discusses adherence to the professional standards and shows that the professional behaviors of librarians vary depending on user, institution, and request types. Then, it discusses the extent to which librarians provide equitable online reference services to diverse users groups and the inconsistent findings from empirical research.

While a growing number of the digital reference services in libraries have become part of collaborative reference networks, other entities that serve similar information-seeking needs such as special collections and museums have not joined these networks, even though they are answering an increasing number of questions from off-site patrons via the Internet. This article examines the differences between questions asked electronically of traditional reference services and those asked of special collections services; it further explores how a better understanding of digital reference in special collections will facilitate the development of the tools and models needed to create a bridge between digital human intermediation at general academic libraries, special collections, and museums.

This article describes a Delphi study conducted to determine factors that affect the process of routing and assigning reference questions received electronically by digital reference services, both to experts within the service and between services. Fifteen factors were determined, by expert consensus, to be important at the conclusion of this study. These fifteen factors are divided into three groups: 1) general factors, 2) factors in routing the question to an individual, and 3) factors when routing the question to another service. These factors were ranked in order of importance and grouped according to the recipient of the question. These fifteen factors need to be taken into account when automating the triage process. This article has laid out a methodology for investigating other digital reference processes so that those processes amenable to automation may be automated, and expertsâ talents and time may be best used.