A virtual expression of need: An analysis of e-mail reference questions

American Archivist

Volumn 64, Issue 1, 2001, Pages 43-60

  Duff, Wendy M ^a   Johnson, Catherine A ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0042096635     PISSN: 03609081     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.17723/aarc.64.1.q711461786663p33     Document Type: Article

References (29)

1. Robert Spindler and Richard Pearce-Moses, "Does AMC Mean Archives Made Confusing? Patron understanding of USMARC AMC Catalog Records," American Archivist 56 (Spring 1993): 330-41;
2. Wendy Duff and Penka Stoyanova, "Transforming the Crazy Quilt: Archival Displays from a Users' Point of View," Archivaria 45 (Spring 1998): 44-79.
3. Eileen G. Abels, "The E-mail Reference Interview," RQ 35 (1996): 345-58;
4. Diane L. Fishman, "Managing the Virtual Reference Desk: How to Plan an Effective Reference E-Mail System," Medical Reference Services Quarterly 17 (Spring 1998): 1-10.
5. Nettie Lagace & Michael McClennen, "Questions and Quirts: Managing an Internet-based Distributed Reference Service," Computers in Libraries 18 (February 1998): 24-27;
6. Bernie Sloan, "Service Perspectives for the Digital Library: Remote Reference Services," Library Trends 47 (Summer 1998): 117-143.
7. Amy M. Kautzman, "Digital Impact: Reality, the Web, and the Changed Business of Reference," Searcher 7 (March 1999): 18-24;
8. Fishman, "Managing the Virtual Reference Desk: How to Plan an Effective Reference E-Mail System;"
9. Elizabeth Davenport, Rob Proctor & Ana Goldenberg, "Distributed Expertise: Remote Reference Service on a Metropolitan Area Network," The Electronic Library 15, (August 1997): 271-278;
10. R. David Lankes, "AskA's: Lesson Learned from K-12 Digital Reference Services," Reference & User Services Quarterly 38 (Fall 1998): 63-71.
11. Abels, "The E-mail Reference Interview"
12. Sloan, "Service Perspectives for the Digital Library: Remote Reference Services;"
13. Lara Bushallow-Wilbur, Gemma DeVinney, & Fritz Whitcomb, "Electronic Mail Reference Service: A Study," RQ 35 (Spring 1996): 359-71.
14. Marcia J. Bates, Deborah N. Wilde, and Susan Siegfried, "An Analysis of Search Terminology Used by Humanities Scholars: the Getty Online Searching Project Report Number 1," Library Quarterly 63 ( January 1993): 15.
15. Helen Tibbo, Abstracting, Information Retrieval and the Humanities: Providing Access to Historical Literature, (Chicago & London: American Library Association, 1993), 83.
16. Charles Cole, "Name Collection by Ph.D. History Students: Inducing Expertise," Journal of the American Society for Information Science 51 (March 15, 2000): 444-55.
17. David Bearman, "User Presentation Language in Archives," Archives & Museum Informatics 3 (Winter 1989/90): 3.
18. Louise Gagnon-Arguin, "Les questions de recherche comme materiau d'etudes des usagers en vue du tratement des archives," Archivaria 46 (1998): 86-102.
19. Karen Collins, "Providing Subject Access to Images: A Study of User Queries," American Archivist 61 (Spring 1998): 36-55.
20. Collins, "Providing Subject Access to Images,"
21. F. W. Lancaster, "Evaluation of the MEDLARS Demand Search Service," (Washington, D.C.: Government Publishing Office, 1968), 102
22. cited in Abels, "The E-mail Reference Interview," 356 n. 10.
23. Mail and e-mail requests are also more likely to represent a "compromised" need, as defined by Taylor [R. S. Taylor, "Question-Negotiation and Information Seeking in Libraries." College and Research Libraries 29 (May 1968): 178-94], since they are composed with some expectation of what the system can deliver. In an in-person or telephone reference interview the archivist can often determine through probing what the user really wants, whereas in mail or e-mail requests the archivist often has to take the request at face value.
24. Denis Grogan, Practical Reference Work, 2nd ed., (London; Library Association Publishing, 1992).
25. Grogan, Practical Reference Work, p. 46.
26. Gerald Jahoda, and Judith S. Braunagel, (1980). The Librarian and Reference Queries: a Systematic Approach. (New York: Academic Press, 1980), 11.
27. Bearman, "User Presentation Language in Archives," 6.
28. Gagnon-Arguin, "Les questions de recherche comme materiau d'etudes des usagers en vue du traitement des archives," 94-95.
29. Collins, "Providing Subject Access to Images: A Study of User Queries," 48-49.