The Digital Reference Transition
Abstract
Digital Reference has gone from a loose affiliation of experiments to a full blown mode of reference in about 8 years. Those years have seen the rapid development of a digital reference community that has generated technical standards, quality metrics, events and consortia. It has also seen the rapid rise, and apparent fall of large scale digital reference projects such as AskERIC and the Internet Public Library. The library community has gone from fear of AskA services to seeing some of these services struggle to find a place in the new digital reference environment. This talk will look briefly at the ever evolving landscape of digital reference projects and explore concepts of sustainability and business models. Have libraries put AskA services out of business?
Link directly to R. David Lankes' biography from his web site. The site includes many of his writings.
David Lankes' presentation
Maryland AskUsNow! celebration
Joe Thompson, of Maryland's AskUsNow! chat reference service kicked off the lecture with a viewing of the service's new TV commercial. March 17 was the one-year anniversary of AskUsNow!
