Identifying Reusable Resources in Digital Reference Responses

User perceptions of social questions and answer websites for library reference services

“…Social reference is a good choice for users in such a scenario. Pomerantz (2011) suggested that SQA sites would be the best alternative to digital reference services. However, Tyckoson (2011) and Luo (2012) considered the understanding of environmental evolution in response to the constant advancement of technologies -such as the dramatic increase of the availability and accessibility of electronic resources and the unprecedented expansion of the media -to be one of the greatest challenges for reference services today.…”

The Knowledge Base as an Extension of Distance Learning Reference Service

“…The assumption is that if the information is useful to one student, it may well be helpful to others doing research in the same area, and this is proving to be the case. Pomerantz (2011), studies the Internet Public Library's archive of answered virtual reference questions and concluded that a portion of resources in a digital reference knowledge base is reusable and may have a half-life of approximately 11 years. Nicholson and Lankes (2007) add that if libraries are able to create a large database for digital reference transactions, researchers might be better able to study the process of user investigation and create tools for measurement and evaluation.…”