Digital Reference Service: The Killer Application?

Abstract

Key technology milestones that started online revolution and allowed libraries to become digital are briefly considered. The librarians of today meet to the challenge of the Internet Age by persistence in maintaining quality of the information prepared for the users and by training them to become good searchers of the Web and the commercial databases. Digital information service provides access to electronic reference sources that are Web-based and human mediated. Digital refe-rence librarians are able to conduct a reference interview, refer the user to the library's bibliographic instruction by developing tutorials including how to evaluate sources. The impact of the digital reference services on the way reference librarians do their jobs is illustrated with changes in the collection deve-lopment, suggestions to conducting an effective written reference interview and enhаnced reference service 24/7. After considering the issues concerned with privacy, copyright and future technology chan-ges, the author concludes that new digital reference libraries have to provide the reference librarians readily available to users via e-mail or chat rooms.