Machine help and human help in the emerging digital library

College and Research Libraries

Volumn 59, Issue 3, 1998, Pages 250-259

  Heckart, Ronald J ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0032360646     PISSN: 00100870     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.5860/crl.59.3.250     Document Type: Article

References (25)

1. Neil Gross, "New Tricks for Help Lines," Business Week 3473 (Apr. 29, 1996): 98.
2. For a general overview of help desk software, see Anita Karve, "Help Is on the Way," LAN Magazine 11 (Aug. 1996): 67-71.
3. See Jim Kerstetter, "Vendors Create Help Desk Standard," PC Week 13 (Aug. 12, 1996): 19, 24.
4. Harry Mingail, "Seeking Help from Intelligent Help Desks," Computing Canada 22 (June 20, 1996): 24.
5. For an overview of developments in distance education with an LIS slant, Howard Besser and Stacy Donahue, guest eels., "Perspectives on Distance Independent Education," Journal of the American Society for Information Science 47 (Nov. 1996): 799-883.
6. Rebecca Denning and Philip J. Smith, "Interface Design Concepts in the Development of ELSA, an Intelligent Electronic Library Search Assistant," Information Technology & Libraries 13 (June 1994): 133-47; see also Frank White, "The User Interface of Expert Systems: What Recent Research Tells Us," Library Software Review 13 (summer 1994): 91-98, and Ray R. Larson et al, "Cheshire II: Designing a Next-Generation Online Catalog," Journal of the American Society for Information Science 47 (July 1996): 555-67.
7. Rebecca Denning and Philip J. Smith, "Interface Design Concepts in the Development of ELSA, an Intelligent Electronic Library Search Assistant," Information Technology & Libraries 13 (June 1994): 133-47; see also Frank White, "The User Interface of Expert Systems: What Recent Research Tells Us," Library Software Review 13 (summer 1994): 91-98, and Ray R. Larson et al, "Cheshire II: Designing a Next-Generation Online Catalog," Journal of the American Society for Information Science 47 (July 1996): 555-67.
8. Rebecca Denning and Philip J. Smith, "Interface Design Concepts in the Development of ELSA, an Intelligent Electronic Library Search Assistant," Information Technology & Libraries 13 (June 1994): 133-47; see also Frank White, "The User Interface of Expert Systems: What Recent Research Tells Us," Library Software Review 13 (summer 1994): 91-98, and Ray R. Larson et al, "Cheshire II: Designing a Next-Generation Online Catalog," Journal of the American Society for Information Science 47 (July 1996): 555-67.
9. William L. Whitson, "Differentiated Service: A New Reference Model," Journal of Academic Librarianship 21 (Mar. 1995): 103-10.
10. The author follows the practice of many futurologists in setting the time frame far enough ahead that he will not be proved wrong quickly.
11. th International Online Information Meeting: Proceedings, London, 3-5 December, 1996 (Oxford: Learned Information Europe, 1997), 13-20. The most influential science fiction work to date is surely Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash (New York: Bantam Books, 1992), which features a highly evolved virtual world that includes a librarian who assists the cyberpunk hero. For an analysis of the cyberbunk phenomenon, see Paul F. Starrs and Lynn Huntsinger, "The Matrix, Cyberpunk Literature, and the Apocalyptic Landscapes of Information Technology," Information Technology & Libraries 14 (Dec. 1995): 251-56.
12. th International Online Information Meeting: Proceedings, London, 3-5 December, 1996 (Oxford: Learned Information Europe, 1997), 13-20. The most influential science fiction work to date is surely Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash (New York: Bantam Books, 1992), which features a highly evolved virtual world that includes a librarian who assists the cyberpunk hero. For an analysis of the cyberbunk phenomenon, see Paul F. Starrs and Lynn Huntsinger, "The Matrix, Cyberpunk Literature, and the Apocalyptic Landscapes of Information Technology," Information Technology & Libraries 14 (Dec. 1995): 251-56.
13. th International Online Information Meeting: Proceedings, London, 3-5 December, 1996 (Oxford: Learned Information Europe, 1997), 13-20. The most influential science fiction work to date is surely Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash (New York: Bantam Books, 1992), which features a highly evolved virtual world that includes a librarian who assists the cyberpunk hero. For an analysis of the cyberbunk phenomenon, see Paul F. Starrs and Lynn Huntsinger, "The Matrix, Cyberpunk Literature, and the Apocalyptic Landscapes of Information Technology," Information Technology & Libraries 14 (Dec. 1995): 251-56.
14. th International Online Information Meeting: Proceedings, London, 3-5 December, 1996 (Oxford: Learned Information Europe, 1997), 13-20. The most influential science fiction work to date is surely Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash (New York: Bantam Books, 1992), which features a highly evolved virtual world that includes a librarian who assists the cyberpunk hero. For an analysis of the cyberbunk phenomenon, see Paul F. Starrs and Lynn Huntsinger, "The Matrix, Cyberpunk Literature, and the Apocalyptic Landscapes of Information Technology," Information Technology & Libraries 14 (Dec. 1995): 251-56.
15. th International Online Information Meeting: Proceedings, London, 3-5 December, 1996 (Oxford: Learned Information Europe, 1997), 13-20. The most influential science fiction work to date is surely Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash (New York: Bantam Books, 1992), which features a highly evolved virtual world that includes a librarian who assists the cyberpunk hero. For an analysis of the cyberbunk phenomenon, see Paul F. Starrs and Lynn Huntsinger, "The Matrix, Cyberpunk Literature, and the Apocalyptic Landscapes of Information Technology," Information Technology & Libraries 14 (Dec. 1995): 251-56.
16. Avatar technology is developing rapidly as an enhancement of Internet chat lines. At the CNET Web site (http://www.cnet.com/Content/Reviews/Compare/Chat/), Bronwyn Fryer and Dave Trobridge evaluate the latest avatar-based chat services, "where you take on the identity of a graphical character in a near-hallucinatory 3D world." They give the highest marks to Worlds Chat (http://www.worlds.net/wcg/), which combines "wonderful 3D graphics with a full gallery of fun avatars to choose from, easy-to-use messaging features, and great online help."
17. Herbert S. White, "Bibliographic Instruction, Information Literacy, and Information Empowerment," Library Journal 117 (Jan. 1992): 76-77.
18. See Gene I. Rochlin, Trapped in the Net: the Unanticipated Consequence of Computerization (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Univ. Pr., 1997), for a broad discussion of risk and vulnerability in computer networks.
19. There are two leading sets of standards. One, originated for U.S. federal government documents and services, is called Government Information Locator Service, or GILS (see http: / /www.usgs.gov/gils/gilscopy.html). The other is called the Dublin Core (see http://purl.org./ metadata/dublin_core).
20. Clifford Lynch, "Searching the Internet," Scientific American 276 (Mar. 1997): 52-56.
21. Cheryl LaGuardia, "Desk Set Revisited: Reference Librarians, Reality, & Research Systems' Design," Journal of Academic Librarianship 21 (Jan. 1995): 8.
22. Jeannette A. Woodward, "Auto Aces or Accident Victims: Librarians on the Info Superhighway," American Libraries 26 (Nov. 1995): 1,018. "Know-bots," specialized expert systems for accessing databases through computer networks, inhabit Martin Halbert's imagined library of 2010. See his "Knowbot Explorations in Similarity Space," in Thinking Robots, an Aware Internet, and Cyberpunk Librarians, R. Bruce Miller and Milton T. Wolf, eds. (Chicago: Library and Information Technology Association, 1992), 143-50.
23. Jeannette A. Woodward, "Auto Aces or Accident Victims: Librarians on the Info Superhighway," American Libraries 26 (Nov. 1995): 1,018. "Know-bots," specialized expert systems for accessing databases through computer networks, inhabit Martin Halbert's imagined library of 2010. See his "Knowbot Explorations in Similarity Space," in Thinking Robots, an Aware Internet, and Cyberpunk Librarians, R. Bruce Miller and Milton T. Wolf, eds. (Chicago: Library and Information Technology Association, 1992), 143-50.
24. "Unobtrusive" studies, in which proxies pose as patrons and ask questions of reference staff, have consistently found accuracy rates in the 50 percent range. For a concise summary of these studies, see Patricia Hults, "Reference Evaluation: An Overview," Reference Librarian 38 (1992): 151-73.
25. See Carolyn W. Jardine, "Maybe the 55 Percent Rule Doesn't Tell the Whole Story: A User-Satisfaction Survey," College & Research Libraries 56 (Nov. 1995): 477-85.