Ask a librarian

Here's a compilation of "ask a librarian" services in 12 of 50 states, and as many countries as I could find. Whenever possible, these will have a (verified) note by them, signifying that I was able to ask and receive an answer to a reference question.

This is a work in progress.

United States.

Library of Congress Ask A Librarian (Library of Congress). Organized by reading room; several have chat based help available, others are via email or phone. "The primary mission of the Library of Congress is to serve Members of the Congress and thereafter, the needs of the government, other libraries, and members of the public. The Library's staff will respond to reference and information requests in accordance with this mission."

Alabama. Mobile Public Library Ask A Librarian. Call (251) 208-7078, or fill out an online form. No chat.

Alabama. University of Southern Alabama Library Help. Call (251) 460-7025, fill out online form, or via chat.

Alaska. Consortium Library Ask A Librarian. Call (907) 786-1848, or reference via email or chat. Consortium supports the University of Alaska at Anchorage and Alaska Pacific University.

Arizona. University of Arizona Ask a Librarian. Call (520) 621-6406 for the main library information desk, or reference via email and chat.

Arizona. Arizona State Museum Ask a Librarian. Reference via email, including research assistance related to archaeology, ethnology, and anthropology; questions answered in 3 days.

Arizona. Scottsdale Public Library Ask a Librarian. Reference via Questionpoint, a forms interface from OCLC.

Arkansas. University of Arkansas Ask a Librarian. Call 479-575-6645. 24x7 chat available; also reference by email.

California. San Francisco Public Library Ask A Librarian. SFPL does 24x7 reference by chat, or via email or telephone at +1 415 557 4400.

Colorado. Boulder Public Library, Contact Us. Reference: +1 303 441 3194.

Connecticut. Darien Library, Contact Us. Information services: (203) 669-5236. Chat available during business hours.

Delaware. Ask a Librarian Delaware. Statewide service through Questionpoint.

Florida. @AALFlorida (Twitter). "We provide Florida with reference via live chat or texting FOR FREE from 10am-midnight Sun-Thurs ET, & 10am-5pm Fri & Sat ET. Email us 24/7."

Georgia. Georgia Tech Library Ask a Librarian. Call +1 404 894 4530 or +1 888 225 7804, or reference by chat, email, or text.

Hawaii.

Idaho.

Illinois.

Indiana.

Iowa.

Kansas.

Michigan. University of Michigan Ask A Librarian. "Ask a Librarian is tailored to the research needs of UM students, staff and faculty, but any one can inquire about specific UM library resources and services. You can connect to a librarian by IM, email, phone or in person, and now, via text message." Call [+1-734-764-9373] for general reference and reference referrals, or text to +1 734 531 9275.

Michigan. Michigan State University Ask A Librarian. Call 1.800.500.1554 or 517.353.8700. A Reference Librarian is available by phone during hours when the Main Library Reference Desk is open. Reference also available by text message and by chat 24/7.

Ohio.

Oregon. L-Net. Statewide cooperative online reference by chat, text, email; uses KnowItNow.org. An L-Net weblog for staff shows the behind the scenes detail of managing the service.

Washington. Ask a Librarian - Washington State Library. "We are here to answer your questions about Washington state government, history, culture, the federal government, and genealogy. We have an extensive collection of Washington newspapers, state publications, federal publications, and other sources for information." Answers delivered by email; obituaries may take as many as 6 weeks.

Credits

Thanks to Julie Weatherbee, Michelle G, Lou Rosenfeld, Eli Neiburger, John Blyberg, Peter Morville, Jessamyn West, Billy Barron, Sam, Caleb and many others for help in putting this list together.

Telephone numbers will be marked up as specified in RFC 3966, if I can manage it.

Comments

[Peter Murray]

Ohio has one called KnowItNow that is a mix of academic and public libraries. It, too, has a ask-by-text-message feature.

[Caleb Tr]

Our service in Oregon is called L-net: Oregon Libraries Network. We have chat, email and texting, 24/7. I think you just missed the link to the top-level page of the site, which is more my fault than yours. We partner with Ohio's KnowItNow on a server to deliver the service and share an after-hours service.

Besides what Peter said, you are missing MarylandAskUsNow (http://www.askusnow.info/), North Carolina (ncknows.org), Colorado (askcolorado.org) QandANJ (for now, http://qandanj.org/) in New Jersey, the actual link to Florida's service (as opposed to their twitter feed, http://www.askalibrarian.org/), and too many more to think of right now. In Canada, British Columbia has a service, as does Ontario. The entire countries of England, New Zealand, Sweden, Australia .... I used to keep a map, but haven't updated it lately (http://www.oregonlibraries.net/staff/2008/01/15/new_maps).

Libsuccess wiki has a large list, http://www.libsuccess.org/index.php?title=Online_Reference#Libraries_Using_Virtual_Reference_Services, and the LISWiki.com used to have a list but it seems to be gone also. There has been some weirdness over some libraries insisting they do "IM reference" and not "virtual reference", but it is just words - the point is that you can get help from librarians online.

Can I ask what is motivating you to make this list this time around?

I think the fact that you aren't finding our front page or Florida's points to poor usability, not your error.

[Ed Vielmetti]

Caleb -

Thanks for the detail. I'm looking at a couple of things for this survey:

1. Simple data gathering, with an emphasis in part on collecting reference telephone numbers. I'm hoping for a single page that has a lot of detail so that if I need to have a reference librarian of many varieties on speed dial that I can call up the page and have one handy.

2. Some systematic look at public, academic, research, and government libraries to see how they differ in providing ask a librarian services to the public. I'm not sure what I'm going to find just yet.

3. A sense for the level of technology that's being used below the state level, e.g. at individual libraries. My working hunch is that "ask a reference librarian with deep and obscure subject knowledge of a unique collection" vs. "ask someone 24x7 about a homework question" are two edges of a multidimensional spectrum, and that technology choices reflect that.

[Caleb Tr]

Wanting to have different subject experts on speed dial is interesting because our whole approach has been "ask us anything and we'll direct you to the right expert".

I'd be interested to see what you find - perhaps the technologies do reflect the types of questions we are expecting, but I'd bet it is often not planned that way.

I think most reference services allow any question can be asked in any media, assuming we have the staff to answer. But you also find libraries explicitly limiting chat to "short" questions, for example, which David Lee King from Kansas railed against a few years ago (http://www.davidleeking.com/2009/01/06/ask-a-librarian-services-need-a-reboot/).

Some of the early literature (~1999) in virtual reference instructed libraries to make long web forms in place of the reference interview (ie where have you looked, what sources have you checked, what is this for, and on and on, eg LC, http://www.loc.gov/rr/askalib/ask-news.html). This type of form is intimidating to almost everyone.

The contemporary thinking is to eliminate as many barriers to asking questions as possible. You see this reflected in the online chat widgets that many libraries use today - sometimes there is a place to put your name, but mostly you just type your question and go (eg http://www.lib.umich.edu/ask-librarian).

So here's a question for you - does a easy-to-use chat widget discourage you from asking an in-depth question?

Springshare makes the Lib____ series of products, including LibAnswers for reference service, and it features a kind of subject/body model for submitting a question - I think the two fields are What is your question (a textfield) and Tell me More (textarea). I think this model could help encourage in-depth questions without discouraging everything else.

[Ed Vielmetti]

I can understand the bias towards the short question, if only to keep the cost of running the service manageable. It's one thing to have questions that can be answered in 2 minutes, and something entirely else to have 15 minute questions or 60 minute questions.

The "expert on speed dial" perspective is really a more general part of looking to know what the strengths are of various collections and not trying to pretend that all libraries (or librarians) are interchangeable. If I'm going to ask a question about electric power in Oregon, my chance of getting a good answer should be better all things being equal if the person answering already gets a lot of questions about electric power or Oregon.

Ideally you'd find the curator of some special collection and ask them! But that starts to sound like a dial-an-archivist service.