Exercise 7: Due April 1
This week's activity will give you experience using virtual reference services from a user's perspective. This should help to give you ideas about how to provide effective services through virtual reference tools.
1. Use one of the following reference questions:
1. How many people were murdered in our state in 2005? (answer can be found here)
2. What is the Gross Domestic Product per capita of Bahrain? (answer can be found here)
2. Contact a library that provides reference services through a commercial virtual reference tool (ideally, this should be a service that is meant to serve people in your area, such as AskNow in California). Ask a reference question and see how your question is answered. If possible, get a copy of the transcript.
3. Contact a library that provides reference services through an alternative means, such as IM, Meebo or Plugoo (again, try to use a service meant to serve you if at all possible). Ask the same reference question. If possible, get a copy of the transcript by copying what shows up in the chat window and pasting it into a document.
4. Write a blog post about both experiences (do not identify the libraries or librarians). How did the interactions differ? What was your experience like with each virtual reference technology? What important do's and don't's did you learn from the interaction? Be sure to categorize your post under the topic Exercise.
