Stalker, J.C.; Murfin, M.E.: Why reference librarians won't disappear : a study of success in identifying answering sources for reference questions (1996)
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- Abstract
- Sourcefinder (SOFI) is an expert system consisting of a database of annotated reference sources, uisng the Nota Bene software, which serves as a support for reference services at the reference desk of the Main Library at Ohio State University. SOFI is used by new reference librarians as a trainign aid, by experienced librarians in unfamiliar subject areas and has the potential to be used at times and places where reference librarians are unavailable. More direct access to reference knowledge is provided ny means of a series of question units on a variety of subjects, where instructions, last resort suggestions, and sources are arranged in the form of types of reference questions. Reports results of a study to test the SOFI question units against the libraries' catalogue, OSCAR, in its ability to convert raw reference questions into subjects and to match that subject with the library's resources. Reference questions were selected and the results obtained by students compared with those obtained by experienced reference librarians. The 8 questions involved: cities; foreign languages; dates and chronologies; money and finance; government officials; testa and assessment; associations; and abbreviations. Point to ways in which SOFI might be improved in the light of this study and suggests the possibility of making SOFI available on the WWW
