The virtual reference desk: Building human expertise into information systems

This paper presents the Virtual Reference Desk project, its activities, and a proposed information system architecture to build a human intermediated network of expertise and experience. The Virtual Reference Desk is a project funded by the U.S. Department of Education's National Library of Education. It seeks to study, support and improve current K-12 digital reference services, so called AskA services, as well as build a foundation for a national cooperative digital reference service. The paper uses the project to demonstrate the viability of implementing a large-scale information system that directly utilizes human expertise. A preliminary technical architecture is outlined that consists of a meta-triage function to connect digital reference services, and a "shrink-wrapped" software package to help build and maintain new digital reference services.