Virtual Reference for Video Collections: System Infrastructure, User Interface and Pilot User Study

Abstract

A new video-based Virtual Reference (VR) tool called VideoHelp was designed and developed to support video navigation escorting, a function that enables librarians to co-navigate a digital video with patrons in the web-based environment. A client/server infrastructure was adopted for the VideoHelp system and timestamps were used to achieve the video synchronization between the librarians and patrons. A pilot usability study of using VideoHelp prototype in video seeking was conducted and the preliminary results demonstrated that the system is easy to learn and use, and real-time assistance from virtual librarians in video navigation is desirable on a conditional basis