Library science is getting harder to teach. The variety in libraries of all types is increasing as more and more mold themselves to their communities rather than field-wide norms. How can library science education change to meet the new variety, and the variety in a post-neutrality world? The author proposes new metrics for evaluating the…

This manual is a first effort to begin to identify, describe, and develop procedures for assessing various aspects of digital reference service. Its overall purpose is to improve the quality of digital reference services and assist librarians to design and implement better digital reference services. More specifically, its aim is to: assist…

Identifies a working set of standards by which to assess individual digital reference services (Internet-based human-mediated information services) and to define membership within a collaborative network of digital reference services. The standards are designed for the Virtual Reference Desk AskA Consortium. (Author/LRW)