Two traditions combine efforts

Initially, the United States Library of Congress (LC) began exploring a practical method for implementing virtual reference in 1998 with a pilot program. The pioneering work done by LC and by library participants in the pilot program at that time, was known as the Collaborative Digital Reference Service (CDRS) project.

The notion behind CDRS was that online networks of libraries would combine the power of local collections and staff expertise with the diversity and availability of libraries and librarians throughout the world, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

OCLC joins the project

While LC explored the global potential for networked reference services, OCLC worked on pilot projects with several U.S. library consortia to develop tools with which librarians could establish a more effective online presence within their own communities and work cooperatively within their existing institutions and consortia.

In 2001, OCLC joined a collaborative effort to build a new program from lessons learned from LC's pilot and other cooperative experiences. The program that became QuestionPoint was beta tested in the spring of 2002, and Version 1.0 of QuestionPoint was launched in June 2002.

All types of libraries can benefit

Any library can benefit as a member of the QuestionPoint network: national libraries, public libraries, academic libraries, consortia, and special libraries.

QuestionPoint is hosted at OCLC and, minimally, requires only a PC with a Web browser for the library user and the librarian. Six months after its introduction in June 2002, over 300 libraries in more than 15 countries were using QuestionPoint, including users in Australia, Canada, China, England, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway and Scotland.