New Network Links Libraries Online

Monday, November 20th 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

WASHINGTON (AP) â€” A group of public and private libraries from around the world is developing a free online reference service to answer research questions from a public often overwhelmed by the Internet's wealth of information and uncertain about its sources.

A Web site, expected to be available by June, will help direct a query to the appropriate library. That could produce answers, for example, from a library in Australia if the question concerns the history of Aborigines.

``We know the quality of information we have in libraries, and we want to bring that to the Internet. We also know the chaos online,'' said Donna Dinberg, systems librarian at the National Library of Canada, one of the first participants in the Comprehensive Digital Reference Service.

Rather than watch idly as Internet companies like AskJeeves, Google or Yahoo! fill the void, librarians believe their expertise, research collections and specialized catalogs not available on the Internet enable them to answer questions quickly and completely â€” for free.

In a trial that began Friday, about 60 libraries started taking questions from library patrons. Questions must be submitted through a member of the library consortium â€” either through a visit, an e-mail, fax or telephone call â€” and passed along through the network.

Each library completes a profile that details their its expertise on subjects and languages, its hours of operation and other information. The network uses that information to direct the inquiry to the appropriate library.

Diane Nester Kresh, director of public service collections at the Library of Congress, which is coordinating the project, said she expects to offer the service through a public Web page by June.

The network will not cater just to academics, but also to anyone who needs information a library might provide, including art, music, or technological information. The level of detail stretches from preschool to graduate studies.

``We've left it deliberately open,'' Kresh said. ``We're taking the library skills and collections that we have and treating it as a collective that anyone could have access to.''

Among the members of the network are Yale and Harvard universities, the National Gallery of Art and the National Library of Australia. Libraries devoted to specific disciplines also are featured, including the Duke University Divinity School and the Canadian Agricultural Library.

While the consortium is concentrated on English now, it eventually will be able to handle up to 20 languages. Current foreign language partners include the Berlin Central and Regional Library and the Institute of Science and Technology in Hong Kong.

Neighborhood libraries will still have a place in the network. Nancy O'Neill at the public library in Santa Monica, Calif., said the reference service dramatically expands the resources of a city library.

``It's my opinion that there are a whole lot more people out there who have an information need that we can answer accurately with authoritative information,'' O'Neill said. ``The academic people will probably get it through their reference desks, but there are more of us than there are of them.''

Wendy Love Anderson, a graduate student at the University of Chicago School of Divinity, said she would use the network for ``tough reference questions'' but she also sees a greater value for the general public that lacks access to an array of resources.

Scholars also could use the service to obtain digital images of rare manuscripts or other items found at a particular library. Librarians will be able to e-mail the questioner directly and attach files with pictures, sound clips or anything else requested.

Beyond specific collections and expertise, the global nature of the research network could spell the end of established library hours. If the local library is closed, a library in another time zone will probably be able to handle the question.

In fact, the very first question sent through the network came from a British library and was fielded by O'Neill in Santa Monica mainly because her library happened to be open at the time. The question asked for the most recent books published in English about ancient Byzantine cuisine.

``I looked at that question and thought, 'Oh boy, I can't believe they sent it to our little library,''' O'Neill said. She found the answer by using a library database and searching journals and book catalogs.

``It wasn't a complete answer, but it was a really good answer,'' she said.

Now, with many more libraries in the group, a university with a good book collection on the Byzantine empire is more likely to get that question. But O'Neill was proud that she could handle it.

``It's a really good example of the (CDRS) possibility, but I hope it doesn't happen again,'' she said. ``That was scary.''

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On the Net:

Library of Congress CDRS site: http://lcweb.loc.gov/rr/digiref

AskJeeves: http://www.askjeeves.com

National Library of Canada: http://www.nlc-bnc.ca

Santa Monica Public Library: http://www.smpl.org/