Discussion Group on Reference Work Report

Experiences from a new digital reference service at the National Library of Sweden

submitted by:
Birgitta Fogelvik

Reference services have a long history at the National Library of Sweden. From the times when August Strindberg was cataloging the library's books - you can still find his catalog cards in our library - we are used to serving the public with all types of inquiries.

However, reference services have been affected by rapidly developing information technologies, new modes of delivery and increased user needs and expectations. The reference division responds to inquiries regarding the library's collections and since the library inaugurated its refurbished premises in 1997 after years of reconstruction, the numbers of inquiries have increased considerably. Inquiries still arrive via mail and fax but, in the last years the number of inquiries via e-mail have increased 27 %:

Year	1997	1998
Mail	238	275
Fax	80	84
E-mail	160	249
Total	478	608

Since January 1999, we offer online reference assistance "Ask the librarian" on our English home-page. Before we started this service, the e-mail inquiries were sent to various e-mail addresses at our library: the webmaster, the administrative department or to our personal e-mail addresses. If the recipient was not at the library for some reason, no one knew that such an inquiry had arrived. The reason for starting this service only on our English home-page is simple: there are other similar services for Swedish users but none for our international users. Our main goal is to respond within 24 hours.

The first question we received in January came from a user in the USA who wanted to know all about our national flowers and birds. We receive many queries in the fields of Swedish family history and Swedish literature but also questions regarding Sweden in general and where to find information about Swedish legislative practice, copyright, foreign policy, laws, maps, statistics etc.

Foreign students writing essays on Swedish subjects often contact us for information about literature as well as Swedish students studying abroad. Usually, we inform them about LIBRIS - the union catalog of Swedish research libraries - available free on the Internet, as well as our own online catalog, Regina, but also give information about useful Swedish links on the Internet. Sometimes we receive very specialized inquiries, such as how to find information on the welfare and pig keeping breeding legislation in Sweden! However, most of the questions submitted concern library related topics.

The reference librarians answer the questions - four reference librarians are involved in this service and therefore, there is someone always ready to answer the question.

Strindberg, in preparing his catalog cards, often added personal remarks about the book in question on its author. Though, we strive to adhere to library traditions - we tend to refrain from commenting on the subject matter on hand.