QANDANJ gets a new lease on life

Here are excerpts from an e-mail sent by Cheryl O'Connor, the Executive Director of LibraryLinkNJ, The New Jersey Library Cooperative.

Last week, the LibraryLinkNJ Executive Board received and unanimously approved a contract extension from the New Jersey State Library for QandANJ @ $50,000. This contract extension will commence July 1, 2011 and will allow us to continue the service into September.


Based on input from participants at the NJLA Reference Section meeting on May 13, the service will remain 24/7 during the contract extension.

New Jersey Library Association Reference Section Chair, Michael Maziekien, shared by email on Saturday that he anticipates “that the NJLA Executive Board will be appointing a task force to assess our immediate plans for virtual reference in New Jersey.”

I have mixed feelings about chat reference as I have expressed in this journal.  Traffic during the summer is low anyway.  It gives individuals who may be afraid to approach a reference librarian in person a venue to ask questions.  Some patrons do expect too much of the librarian and cut off the chat if the question can not be answered immediately.  My biggest gripe is that too many patrons think they have reached their local librarian and ask a question that can not be answered by someone from another institution.