The Digital Reference Electronic Warehouse Project: Creating the infrastructure for digital reference research through a multidisciplinary knowledge base

Abstract

One of the valuable offerings of librarians in the digital age is the human intermediation of information needs. In physical libraries, these reference questions are answered, and few artifacts remain from the transaction; therefore, the knowledge created through the work of the librarian leaves with the patron. Due to the medium of communication, digital reference transactions capture the knowledge of information professionals. There are hundreds of digital reference services generating knowledge every day; however, the lack of a schema for archiving reference transactions from multiple services makes it difficult to create a fielded, searchable knowledge base. The development of such a schema would allow researchers to develop tools that practitioners can employ. In turn, this would create a collaborative environment for digital reference evaluation. The goal of this work is to outline the steps needed to develop this schema, present the results of a survey of digital reference services, explore some of the pitfalls in the process, and envision the future uses of this Digital Reference Electronic Warehouse. The future, and some might even say the present, for the library professional is the digital library Instead of waiting for the user to come to their information containers in a physical collection, librarians select high-quality materials for users to access through the Internet. It is relatively easy to put a collection of static files online, however, the library is more than just a collection of documents. A crucial part of a library is the human intermediary--the librarian. This intermediary connects the users to the information needed and can assist with advice about using the information retrieval systems and working with information. However, many users turn to Web search tools for their information retrieval needs. While these tools provide the user with Web pages that match a word on the topic, the quality of the results is questionable. Most Web search tools are for-profit companies and bombard users with advertising. In addition, search-engine optimizers work to place commercial sites at the top of lists; this has resulted in many searches leading to page after page of commercial results. This commercial information is appropriate for some informationseeking needs, and this is an area where the Web search tools excel. However, the search for noncommercial information can be frustrating. This is an opportunity for libraries. There clearly is a need for intermediation with the location of material online. Users have turned to question-based search tools such as Ask.com with the hopes of finding such assistance; however, these tools perform no better than a general search tool. There is another type of Web search tool that can take a user's question and match it to a set of results that are likely to be on topic with little advertising and no direct charge--a digital reference service. In fact, those teaching about Web search tools should always take the opportunity to present a digital reference service as a Web search tool with built-in intelligence. Many libraries have started services where they allow users to submit questions via e-mail or Web forms. Librarians research the question and provide an answer and related documents to the user. Some libraries offer this service using a live-chat model, where the user is interacting with a librarian with little time elapsing between question and response. These services are usually free, although the user base may be limited to users who are affiliated with the library offering the services. Yahoo! has also entered this domain with Yahoo! Answers, which is a community-based reference service. Users earn points for good answers. Google ran a reference service for a few years called Google Answers, in which those asking questions set a payment for an answer, but Google shut this service down in 2006. Some digital reference services, commonly known as AskA services, connect the user directly to an expert in the field instead of to a librarian. …