Call for volunteers - Virtual Reference Desk

[Blythe Bennett <blythe@ERICIR.SYR.EDU>]

The Virtual Reference Desk invites you to volunteer with the VRD Network
digital reference (Internet question and answer) project.

VRD's goal is to develop a national collaborative network of digital
reference, or AskA, services. Objectives are:

*Connect patrons with experts in order to solve information problems and
 improve subject knowledge.
*Assist organizations in building and maintaining digital reference
 services.
*Develop standards for digital reference.

There is a growing number of quality AskA services online and they
sometimes run into problems with question loads and out of scope
questions. In 1999, VRD started a project where many different AskA
services including Ask a MAD Scientist, AskERIC, the American Memory
project, the Internet Public Library and the National Museum of American
Art Reference Desk are collaborating to share questions. VRD accepts some
of the overflow and out of scope questions from these services and routes
those to the most appropriate resource, which could be another subject
specific AskA service or kept to be answered by a team of VRD network
information specialists.

We believe that librarians should be the core of that service. Librarians
are the most qualified professionals to attend to the needs of a wide
range of subject areas. Information literacy is the keystone of your
instruction and VRD would offer you the opportunity to extend your
expertise to patrons in a digital environment. Some benefits you will find
from volunteering with this project are:

*become a more efficient searcher
*help you find materials online for your own students
*serve as a continuing education tool
*provide a sense of satisfaction from helping others
*work with a diverse (world) population

What would be required from you? You would have some online training
experience and would agree to take a limited number of questions depending
upon a schedule we would work out together. There would always be time off
for holidays and when you needed time out from questions.  Most volunteers
elect to participate on a rotation where they are "on" a month and "off"
the next month and so on.

There is an online training manual and you would have a series of practice
questions. The time for training varies, most people finish in a few
weeks, depending on how busy their schedules are. You would set the pace,
so it is very flexible.

If you are interested in participating with the Virtual Reference Desk as
part of the core of volunteer librarians, please let me know. If you want
to discuss the possibility of continuing education credits, we can do that
too. Some school districts accept a letter stating what was involved in
the training and how many hours are spent in the activity.

The sponsors of the Virtual Reference Desk project are:
ERIC Clearinghouse on Information & Technology
National Library of Education
with support from
The (White House) Office of Science and Technology Policy

Blythe Bennett


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                        Blythe Allison Bennett
                Virtual Reference Desk Network Coordinator
                    Information Institute of Syracuse
                          Syracuse University
                         blythe@ericir.syr.edu

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