the Internet Public Library the Internet Public LibraryFrom the beginning, the Internet Public Library project, based at the University of Michigan School of Information (SI), has been driven by its mission to educate library school students about the practice of librarianship in the digital age. An integral part of that education has been providing students at SI and other library schools with the opportunity to get hands-on experience in being a "virtual librarian" by answering questions for the IPL's Ask A Question service.
The "Ask a Question" service is one of the most popular e-mail based reference services on the Internet. Patrons from all over the world submit questions, which are then answered by the library school students, library paraprofessionals, and professional librarians who staff our virtual reference desk. With their help, the IPL has answered over 40,000 reference questions to date.
More than this, though, the "Ask a Question" service is a learning laboratory for students and librarians who want to learn more about the benefits and drawbacks of offering electronic reference services to library patrons, the challenges and rewards of using the Internet to answer reference questions, and the impact of the Internet on the practice of librarianship. IPL staff members supervise the service -- providing training, feedback, and guidance to students & volunteers as they tackle the diverse questions that the service receives. Collaboration tools also enable our students and volunteers to help eachother out with difficult questions, adding to the learning experience.
We are currently interested in recruiting library school faculty members who would be interested in working with the IPL to offer their students the opportunity to answer questions for our "Ask a Question" service. We have several successful models for such a partnership.
Most notably, we have worked with a faculty member at Kent State University for 4 years in a row. Students in the faculty member's introduction to reference course are assigned an IPL "practicum" in which they each commit to spending a specified number of hours over the course of the semester answering questions for the IPL's "Ask a Question" service. We have also made similar arrangements with faculty at the University of Washington, University of Illinois, University of Alabama, Rutgers University, Catholic University of America, and University of Texas in which, as part of their coursework for a reference class, the students were each assigned to answer a set number of questions over a several week time period, for the service.
We are also open to other ideas for how we might involve classes and/or individual students in our project. Our goal is to do as much as we can to enable students to participate in what we believe is an exciting project that helps enhance students' skills and experience!
IPL staff members' time spent training and supervising students who participate is free-of-charge. Faculty who wish to arrange for a staff member to visit their school in-person to offer a training seminar to get the students started, though, would have to cover travel, room and board costs. Staff members are also available for "virtual visits" to the faculty's class through online conferencing technologies.
Supervision and monitoring of the students' work is usually mostly be handled by IPL staff - we have staff coverage of the service for most of the 24x7 hours that the service operates and a vested interest in seeing that our patrons receive high-quality service - but we also work closely with the faculty member to be sure that they are kept in the loop about their students' progress.
Students who participate will need to have Internet access and their own e-mail account. There are no special software requirements to access the IPL's web-based system for viewing and answering reference questions, besides access to a web browser. Question queues allow students to choose from a list of questions that are available to be worked on. Once a student chooses a question, they are responsible for seeing that the patron receives an answer by their deadline, or within one week from when the IPL accepted the question, whichever is sooner. All questions and their answers are archived, and are available for students and faculty to review at any later date.
Faculty who are interested in collaborating with the IPL should contact us at least 1 month before their class starts. Depending upon the number of students in a class, we can handle 3 - 4 classes at any given time. If there is more interest than availability, IPL staff will select those classes which seem best suited to the service.
Contact Information:
Patricia Memmott
IPL Reference Coordinator
e-mail: ipl@ipl.org
phone: (734)764-4386
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