QANDANJ, a chat reference service

NJIT participates in a chat service called QANDANJ. Students and the general public can submit questions that we try to answer. Today I received a questions about the budget for military technology and World War II. I used Academic Search Premier to find articles and WorldCat to find books that could answer this patron's question. I was never thrilled with the concept of chat reference since the time it takes to communicate is longer than with a face to face encounter. New information technologies are supposed to save time while chat reference can take longer. We also use a chat service at the eference desk.