Online reference services : overview of their development in theory and practice

Abstract

Online referentne usluge, u svom najopćenitijem obliku, predstavljaju referentne usluge u mrežnom okruženju. U radu je dan sažet pregled razvoja online referentnih usluga od njihovih početaka pa sve do danas. Na početku, razmatra se njihova povijest te odnos s tradicionalnom referentnom uslugom. U teoretskom dijelu rada dana je definicija i podjela online referentnih usluga, a zatim je opisan najzastupljeniji model usluge. Dio rada, koji razmatra praktične vidove promatranog fenomena, govori o tehničkim standardima te programskoj podršci online referentnim uslugama. U završnom dijelu rada slijedi i kratki prikaz dviju online referentnih službi dostupnih u Hrvatskoj: Pitajte knjižničare – online referentne usluge hrvatskih narodnih knjižnica te usluge QuestionPoint, trenutno najveće online referentne usluge na svijetu, koju nudi i Nacionalna i sveučilišna knjižnica u Zagrebu.In their most common form online reference services represent the reference services in a network environment. The paper gives a concise overview of the development of online reference services from their beginnings until today. First part describes the relationship between online and traditional reference services. The theoretical part of the work deals with definition and types of online reference services but also discusses the most common model of services. Part of the paper that provides practical aspects of the observed phenomena tells more about technical standards and program support to online reference services. Finally, two Croatian online reference services are presented: Ask the librarians from Croatian public libraries and QuestionPoint, currently the largest online reference service in the world, offered in Croatia by the National and University Library in Zagreb