Title: Reaching beyond the reference books in public libraries

Authors: Ann Curry

Addresses: Associate Professor and Chair of Doctoral Studies Program, School of Library, Archival and Information Studies, The University of British Columbia, #301 6190 Agronomy Road, Vancouver, V6T 1Z3, BC, Canada

Abstract: An analysis of the URLs from transaction logs obtained from the public access terminals in four Canadian cities revealed that customers accessed a wide variety of web-based communities devoted to diverse subjects. This paper argues that public library reference librarians should include more web-based communities in the sources that they recommend to customers.

Keywords: virtual community; World Wide Web; internet; public libraries; information seeking; reference services; web based communities.

DOI: 10.1504/IJWBC.2005.008110

International Journal of Web Based Communities, 2005 Vol.1 No.4, pp.450 - 463

Published online: 16 Nov 2005 *

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