GOBI: Good to know!
Norwegian inquiry services in libraries and beyond

Oslo Public Library has provided a national reference service in digital form (e-mail) since 1997. In this project associate professor Tord Høivik, from Oslo University College, will analyze all the questions - above 12.000 - that have been stored from 1997 till 2003, to see what they reveal about the public and their use of the library.

Reference work is a particular service offered by libraries to their patrons. Most studies of reference work have focused on the response to specific individual queries. In this project we want to pay more attention to the aggregate or collective level  - by considering the flow of queries and their efficient processing.  

The project starts with general reference work in public libraries. We want to measure, in a few selected libraries,

• the number of questions per time unit (the work load or intensity of demand) 
• the distribution of questions among some major types of categories 
• the time distribution: how many minutes do different types of questions require? 
• the demography of patrons (gender, age, education).

With this as a basis we want 

• to develop a small set of descriptive indicators that can measure reference flows generated by non-specialised groups of users
• investigate to what extent questions can be answered by using WWW resources
• propose practical strategies for organising reference services in public and college libraries 

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Much more text will be added ....