Summary

  • OCLC reported that nearly one in eight messages through Open WorldCat's Comments form was a reference question.
  • A June 2005 pilot put links to library reference forms beside search results, with QuestionPoint requests joining libraries' existing Ask queues.

A website can label a box “Comments.” Readers can still ask it for help with their research. In 2005, Open WorldCat had the receipts: nearly one in eight communications through that form was a reference question.

The figure comes from OCLC's contemporary pilot leaflet. Behind the apparently mundane form sat real work. Before the new arrangement, responses came through the 24/7 Reference Cooperative and OCLC's Information Center. A feedback channel had acquired a second occupation.

First, let the searcher find the library

Open WorldCat had been moving library records into the places people already searched. In its late-2004 newsletter, OCLC described making abbreviated records available through Google in 2003 and subsequently through Yahoo. The links led toward library catalogues and websites. By November 2004, Google Scholar also offered a route to the “Find in a Library” service.

That created a useful journey: a search on the wider web could point to an item held nearby. It also brought people who had more to ask. Finding a title can be the beginning of research, and a catalogue record has limited conversational range.

There were already librarians online. Library of Congress announced QuestionPoint's release in June 2002, following its joint development with OCLC. Questions submitted through a library website could be answered by that library's staff or forwarded to another participating institution. Libraries subscribed; patrons used the service free. The human answering network preceded the new WorldCat doorway.

A question mark with somewhere to go

The Open WorldCat Reference Services pilot began on 20 June 2005. Its leaflet describes a practical sequence. A visitor arriving from a partner search entered a postal code or another geographic identifier. Nearby libraries holding the item appeared. Those offering online reference displayed a question-mark icon; clicking it opened a library form or a default form.

For QuestionPoint libraries, the submitted question arrived in the existing Ask queue, just as a question from their own website would. Libraries using other reference platforms received requests through the links they supplied.

That queue is the quiet hinge of the story. The new button joined an established place where staff collected work. The reader could approach from elsewhere on the web; the librarian could receive the request in familiar surroundings. Even a question mark needs an address.

Libraries retained a choice. QuestionPoint administrators could control participation in the pilot through their settings, and OCLC pointed them toward the Global Reference Network when a question was difficult to answer. Visibility had acquired a service commitment, with a local switch.

The pilot set out to test whether this route increased use of online reference services. Its surviving leaflet supplies the design and the question it hoped to answer. The design itself is revealing: once a library becomes easier to find, people expect a way to talk to it. Open WorldCat was giving that expectation a proper desk.