Digital versus Non-Digital Reference : Ask a Librarian Online and Offline

Digital versus Non-Digital Reference analyses the quality of commercial and tutorial services and how they compare to traditional library services.

Edited by Jessamyn West - proprietor of librarian.net and the "hippest ex-librarian on the Web" according to Wired magazine - the book looks at library models and more consumer-oriented models, examining a variety of services that range from Ask Jeeves[registered] and Google[trademark] to the library's own reference desk and Web e-mail reference forms.

Academic librarians and information specialists share their experiences - good and bad - in starting, assessing, and in working with collaborative reference tools and outsourcing reference services, and discuss the highs and lows of dealing with individual online services.Digital versus Non-Digital Reference chronicles the experiences and interactions of librarians with digital reference, including case studies, how-to guides, and philosophical essays.

The book's contributors discuss their concerns about using the Internet as not only a reference tool but as a reference medium that most libraries find inevitable to some degree.

Topics include the political ramifications of offsite or outsourced reference, the truth behind the assertion that "it's all available online," cultural and/or language barriers to text-based reference services, and patrons' experiences with reference tools, from a librarian's perspective.

This book is an invaluable resource for practitioners and academics on the appropriate assessment, technologies, and methods for successfully creating and operating human-mediated, Internet-based information services.