At 5:26 p.m. local time on November 29th, a user of Bibliotheek Waterland, the public library in and around Purmerend, the Netherlands, logged on to the Al@din reference service and asked the question: “What is the distribution of market share for automobiles in Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and the U.K.?”
It was the 3 millionth question logged on QuestionPoint, the virtual reference desk developed by OCLC and the Library of Congress and the system that hosts the Netherlands’ Al@din service. The question was forwarded to and answered by specialists on this subject of the Openbare Bibliotheek Groningen. Al@din, the Dutch digital reference desk, is a Web-based network of librarians that delivers reference assistance to researchers anytime, anyplace. It is one of eight groups and more than 100 libraries worldwide that are locally branding a customized version of QuestionPoint. Al@din links 230 public libraries in the Netherlands and is available to any library user in the country through the Netherlands Public Library Association Web site. Al@din can answer questions locally and nationally or seamlessly refer them to the QuestionPoint network, which consists of more than 1,700 libraries in 23 countries.
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