CDNLAO Newsletter
No. 59, July 2007
The National Library of Australia is a public research and reference library. It has more than nine million items in its collection, including books, journals, newspapers, maps, music, manuscripts, pictures, oral history, ephemera and electronic resources, including websites. Many of these items are published in Australia or are about Australia, but that is not all. The Library also has world-class Asian and Pacific collections and many other overseas publications and rare books. The Library aims to meet the information needs of all Australians and people from overseas who are researching Australian subjects.
Reading Rooms
Over 580 000 local, interstate and international visitors came through the Library’s doors in 2006-2007. For readers, the first stop is generally the Main Reading Room because it gives access to the Library’s general collection of published material: books, journals and electronic resources. Students also use this large reading room as a study hall. Some of Australia’s most renowned scholars work for extended periods in the Petherick Reading Room.
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Main Reading Room, National Library of Australia
There are also separate reading rooms for Newspapers and Microforms, Asian Collections, Manuscripts, Maps and Pictures. The Library’s reading rooms provide access to the collections; the Internet; electronic resources such as journals, indexes and databases; the wireless network; photocopiers, printers and microform equipment; music notation software, an electronic keyboard and audio listening. At information desks in each of the reading rooms there is personal assistance from staff in using the Library’s collections and services.
Services for offsite users
If members of the public want information about the Library’s services or have questions about subjects they are researching they can ask for help without coming into the Library by using the online enquiry form on the Library’s website www.nla.gov.au. Interestingly, we receive almost the same number of enquiries from personal clients in the reading rooms as from clients offsite.
They can send an email, chat, telephone and, increasingly less often, they send faxes and letters. In 2006-07, of our 21 838 offsite enquiries 32 % were received by web form or email, 36 % by chat, 31 by phone and 1 % by letter.
To get copies of articles, chapters of books, photographs, manuscripts and microfilm they can contact the Document Delivery Service. Through their local library they can also request books to be sent on inter-library loan to a library near where they live or work.
AskNow
Since 2005 the Library has provided virtual reference services using chat technology in the Australia-wide collaborative AskNow service www.asknow.gov.au. Clients chat online, in real time, with a reference librarian using the interactive software, QuestionPoint, from OCLC. Over 100 operators from national, state and public libraries in Australia and New Zealand answer mainly short reference questions from 9am to 7pm Monday to Friday. It has proved to be a very successful service and continues to receive an average of 2000 enquiries each month.
The National Library has been trialling Instant Messaging (IM) as another form of virtual reference since November 2006. Messages sent via IM appear immediately on the recipient’s computer screen. We use the Gaim (or Pidgin) aggregator client, which allows multiple IM accounts to be monitored simultaneously. It is a free, open-source product which we are modifying to enable simultaneous operators during busy times. The trial definitely demonstrated the demand for an IM service: between November 2006, when the trial commenced, and the end of June 2007, over 1300 enquiries were received, and 100% of surveyed users said they would use the service again. Also 91% of users rated the service as very good or excellent with 40% using the service more than once.
AskNow home page featuring Instant Messaging
FAQs
The National Library of Australia offers a number of unmediated services through its website www.nla.gov.au. These include guides to the collection and services, as well as access to the Library’s catalogue and the Libraries Australia search service for library collections across Australia. A particularly popular feature is the Frequently Asked Question site which contains keyword searchable answers prepared by our librarians. This information is generated from our reference enquiry management system, Support Wizard, using open source software as an interface to the exported data. In June 2007 the site received almost 16 000 page views with the ‘Questions in the Spotlight’ section being particularly popular and indicating our users are as interested in browsing for information, as well as searching for ‘known items’.
Further enhancements
The National Library’s major objective in 2006-2008 is to enhance learning and knowledge creation by further simplifying and integrating services that allow our users to find and get material, and by establishing new ways of collecting, sharing, recording, disseminating and preserving knowledge. In the words of our Director-General, Jan Fullerton, ‘we are trying to make the library experience as easy as Google – and the National Library’s collections accessible to all Australians’. Staff in Reference Services play a crucial role in this objective, as we capitalise on new technologies and continue to introduce innovative services.
Contact details
Questions or comments regarding reference services at the National Library of Australia may be addressed to Susanne Bruhn, Director, Reader Services sbruhn@nla.gov.au
Copyright (C)2007 National Library of Australia
