Ask a Librarian and iGS: Finnish Reference Services

Nina Granlund,Finland2007

Ask a Librarian

- Joint digital reference service of Finnish libraries.

- Situated in Libraries.fi, the national library portal for all Finnish libraries (public, special, university libraries).

Libraries.fi

- Produced by the Central Library for Public Libraries in Finland (Helsinki City Library ) and financed by the Ministry of Education.

- Supported by the national strategies for the information society and libraries (e.g. Library Strategy 2010), http://www.minedu.fi/export/sites/default/OPM/Julkaisut/2003/liitteet/opm_156_kseng.pdf?lang=en

Libraries.fi: Three languages

- Published in three languages: Finnish and Swedish, and partly also in English.

- http://www.kirjastot.fi

- http://www.biblioteken.fi

- http://www.libraries.fi

Libraries.fi contains

-Information about libraries (addresses, staff, catalogues)

- Information about literature, music and children (foremost for librarians).

- Library events, training for librarians etc.

Libraries.fi contains

- Search services: Link Library, http://www.kirjastot.fi/linkkikirjasto , SFL, Search Find and Locate, a guiding search, http://searchfindlocate.libraries.fi/ , Meta-search, http://monihaku.kirjastot.fi/ , Ask a Librarian, http://www.libraries.fi/ask_librarian .

Libraries.fi

- Contents produced by the editors of Libraries.fi and the libraries together.

- Libraries: information about libraries, library events, Link Library contents, answering in the Ask a Librarian –service.

Ask a librarian

- Started 1999.

- Answers are given in three languages: Finnish, Swedish and English.

- Public archive (also in three languages).

Ask a Librarian

- Question is sent in via a web form, the answer is delivered to the email-address given by the customer.

- Questioner gives his municipality of residence in the question form.

- Also a list of participating libraries from which the questioner can choose an answering library

http://www.kirjastot.fi/tietopalvelu .

Ask a Librarian

- Children have a special simpler form, http://www.kirjastot.fi/lapsille/kysy .

- Answer is given within three working days (Saturday and Sunday excluded).

Ask a Librarian

- 54 libraries answering in the service: 39 public libraries, 1 university library and 14 special libraries and references service groups.

- All regional central libraries.

- 2006 415 different persons sent answers.

Ask a Librarian

- Expertise in various topics:

- Library of Parliament (law), Statistics Library, Lapponica -reference group from Lapland, University of Art and Design, Reference for the visually impared etc., http://www.libraries/en-GB/ask_librarian/libraries/ . http://www.kirjastot.fi/tietopalvelu .

Ask a Librarian

- Number of questions is increasing:

2003 2928

2004 3514

2005 4000

2006 5029 questions answered.

AaL: Principal idea

- Question meets expert = the person who feels he can give a good answer, answers (special libraries).

AaL: Practice

- All participating libraries follow the questions coming in, bigger ones check every day the answering application, smaller ones get automatically an email when a question from their municipality is sent in.

- If the questioner has chosen an answering library, the email will be send to this library.

AaL: Practice

- Every library has one or two persons responsible for the follow-up.

- A national editor surveys, contacts libraries and answers.

AaL: Practice

- If there are questions from other than participating municipalities, every one answers.

- The Libraries.fi-editor surveys also all answering and furthermore the contents of the public archive.

AaL: Practice

Library x :

Answerer 1, Answerer 2, Answerer 3, etc.

Responsible 1, Responsible 2

Libraries.fi :

National editor (part time, works as reference librarian in Helsinki City Library)

Libraries.fi-editor

AaL: Practice

- The organisation functions well: most of the questions are answered the same day (71%, within 2 working days 15%, within 3 working days 8%, delayed were 6%).

AaL:Communication

- Communication between librarians participating via a closed email-list.

- Information from the Libraries.fi-edition is sent via the same list.

AaL:Communication

- Info-area in the aswering application.

- Every other year a meeting for participating staff.

AaL: Public Archive

- Contains 15 000 question/answer –pairs.

- Keywords.

- Keyword list is given to the customer: a keyword is an active link, by clicking it, a search is made.

AaL: Public archive

- Needs editing and updating.

- Link control (Internet addresses change rapidly).

- Contains useful information.

- http://www.libraries.fi/ask_librarian/archive.aspx

Future plans

- More libraries.

- More channels for asking.

- New answering application.

- More interactive services for customers.

More libraries

- More libraries and other reference services are joining the service every year.

More channels

- AaL-chat.

- Several libraries will have own chat-channels.

- Joint chat-channel for all libraries exists also already, but needs however practical organising.

- Support in the Libraries.fi-edition.

More channels

- Use in digital television already possible, not yet in use.

Answering application

- A new semantic application.

- Prototype 2006.

- 2007 developing project.

Semantic answering application

-Customer:

• Customer writes a question -> application makes a search in the archive (analysing the text and using ontologies to produce the search result).

• Customer will be offered ready answers from the archive.

Semantic answering application

- Answerer:

• When a librarian starts answering a new question, he will be offered ready answers from the archive.

• Use of ready knowledge.

• Updating of archive.

Interactive services for customers

- Feedback already possible.

- Customers will be given an opportunity to comment on the answer and publish comments.

- These features will be developed this year.

iGS: Information Gas Station

- Digital reference service of Helsinki City Library.

- Started 2001.

- Answers are given in three languages: Finnish, Swedish and English.

- Public archive (in three languages).

iGS

- Mobile device: work-stations can be placed to public locations and reference work can be taken to where the customers are.

iGS

- Radio program.

- Questions and answers are shown on the webpages of the program and iGS.

- http://lotta.yle.fi/rsweb2.nsf/sivut/kysymitavain?opendocument&pageid=Content133538A31D2

iGS

- Simple question form.

http://igs.kirjastot.fi/en-GB/iGS/

- Ask anything!

- The answer is sent to the customers email within two weeks.

iGS

- Number of questions varies:

2003 4193

2004 6624

2005 5308

2006 6261

iGS: practice

- Staff of Helsinki City Library answers. There are about 50 active answerers, 2006 113 different persons sent answers.

- Editor surveys, answers, organises the tours of the mobile equipement and the radio program staff.

iGS: Communication

- Communication between librarians answering in a discussion area in the answerig application.

- The editor publishes information about the service in an info area in the application.

Public Archive

- Contains 25 000 answers, organised in different categories (e.g. astronomy, traffic, arts).

- Text search.

- http://igs.kirjastot.fi/en-GB/iGS/questions/search.aspx

Future

- Interactive features: Feedback possibility for customers.

- Semantic answering application: Co-operation with the national Ask a Librarian.

Kiitos!