The advent of the virtual library is usually presented as a welcome development for library users. Unfortunately, this tends to reinforce the perception of the use of
information resources as a solitary activity. In fact, as many studies have emphasised, information retrieval (IR) in the conventional library is often a highly collaborative
activity, involving users' peers and experts such as librarians. Failure to take this into account in the design of virtual library services may result in its users being
disadvantaged and denied timely and effective access to sources of assistance. Our focus here is on collaboration between users and librarians. We report an
investigation of collaboration issues as seen from the perspective of librarians' and users' contexts and encapsulated in the notion of genre. Finally, we describe the design of a pilot multimedia-based system intended to support collaboration between librarians and IR system users
