The “virtual reference service” in the CSIC Library and Archive Network: some considerations

Abstract

The reference service (RS) was, quite probably, one of the first services that libraries and archives began to offer their users. The preservation of a collection, on the one hand, and the possibility of its consultation, on the other, is intrinsically related to this service: addressing the questions that users raise about access to that collection and, by extension, about any other information that is of interest to them. That could be, hypothetically, the birth of what is currently usually presented as RS. Times have changed, libraries and archives have been modernizing and expanding both the methodology of their work and the services offered. As regards RS, adjectives such as “virtual”, “digital”, “electronic” have been added… but, in reality, its original objective has not changed. It continues to be the process of communication between user and librarian in which the attempt is made to satisfy the information needs of the former through the information resources available to the latter. The main difference lies in the fact that the communication channels and almost all the resources used are now in digital format. This has allowed SR to be offered to users without the space-time limitations that traditional SR was confined to until not so long ago. The challenges brought by the Internet and, more recently, Web 2.0, have allowed something as logical as social networks to be introduced into the typical user-librarian binomial, so that the answers are not only provided exclusively by the librarian, but by the members of a social community who share certain common interests. But, ultimately, the question that may have given rise to SR remains exactly the same: "How can we help you?"