Information Research Weblog

While searching for information on the King County wireless Internet system, I came across a conference series I hadn't seen before, which is available on the Web. It's the Virtual Reference Desk Conference series. The first thing that hit my screen was a discussion between Mike Eisenberg (University of Washington) and Charles McClure (Florida State University) in the second conference in 2000, which is entertaining as well as informative. However, there's a lot more there on the impact of the Internet, and of electronic connection between user and library that points to significant changes going on and likely to accelerate.

The latest papers (although, in fact, most are presentations rather than papers) available are those from the 2002 conference. One of the 'exemplary' papers is from Simon Bains at the University of Edinburgh on Testing Collaborative Electronic Reference Services: The Experience of UK University Research Libraries in the Use of QuestionPoint

All in all, worth a browse.