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QuestionPoint : Overview : How QuestionPoint works

How QuestionPoint works

QuestionPoint is comprised of two major service components:

For your users: connect your users to the library using QuestionPoint’s virtual reference service. By placing a link on your library’s website, your users can use the email or chat tools of QuestionPoint to access your reference staff—at the user’s point of need. Your library’s resources are supplemented by the expertise of all the QuestionPoint libraries working together through the Global Reference Network. By adding the 24/7 Reference Cooperative option, these reference services are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.

For your library: a professional service created, maintained and used by the member libraries, which enables local administrators to manage local reference functions, participate in a global library initiative and access local and/or global knowledge bases.

QuestionPoint features

QuestionPoint is a unique virtual reference service, supported by global network of cooperating libraries worldwide, using an infrastructure of software tools and communications. QuestionPoint is also a source of unique centralized knowledge resources built by a collaborative network of member libraries.

Reference management features

  • Web-based chat, cobrowse and cooperative reference tools use best-in-class technology and require no special software or browser plug-ins. Librarians can transfer sessions to other librarians online and send messages to other online librarians using the built-in Instant Messaging component. There is also support for multilingual reference transactions.
  • Unique customizable messages. Instead of just one list of scripted chat messages for an entire group of libraries, each library can add their own individual scripted messages, which appear when one of their customers comes into the queue.
  • Administrative monitoring. The librarian can add notes visible only to other librarians in the session or via QuestionPoint’s question follow-up after the session. Administrators can join any of their library’s chat sessions, to send private notes or suggestions unseen by patrons.
  • Reporting tools. QuestionPoint helps you manage both online and in-person reference transactions. Statistical reports based on the type and level of your reference activity help you make management decisions, demonstrate trends for funding proposals and measure library user satisfactions levels. Reports by Institution, by all Library Staff or by Single Librarian displaying a wide spectrum of activities and detail.
  • Q&A knowledge base is carefully reviewed and maintained by Cooperative contributors.
  • Automatic subject referral through the Global Reference Network routes your submitted question or chat session to a partner library based on criteria such as subject, language or hours of coverage.

24/7 Reference Cooperative features

  • Meet users at their point of need—provide reference service around the clock with trustworthy, real-time one-on-one reference assistance from professional librarians, right from your library Web page or other Web portal. Wherever your customers are, you can be there too.
  • Expand your reference desk hours without increasing staff. For a modest weekly contribution of staffing to the Cooperative, you can provide failsafe coverage 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, to your customers.
  • Belong to several groups simultaneously, such as a local consortium and a subject-specific group. Any number of librarians may monitor the service at any time. A library can belong to a regional or statewide group, as well as to the international 24/7 Reference Cooperative.
  • Languages and translations—The QuestionPoint library user interface can be configured in any language with Unicode support that your staff and online users speak. The QuestionPoint administrative (librarian-facing) interface is currently available in English, Spanish, French, Chinese (simplified), Chinese (traditional), Dutch, Korean and Slovene, with more languages on the way.

The major benefits of QuestionPoint

Libraries today need to meet users when and where their information needs are greatest. We live in an on-demand, round-the-clock world that puts stress on our time and attention. Every day, librarians are being asked to do more with less. How do you serve the information service needs of your community and keep up with the growing demand? QuestionPoint is the answer.

QuestionPoint combines an infrastructure of software and communications tools with a global network of cooperating libraries worldwide. The benefits are impressive:

  • Raise the visibility of your library. QuestionPoint will surprise and delight users throughout your community, and bring new users into your library as their primary source for answers.
  • Reach Web users of familiar resources such as Google and Yahoo! Search through links from the “Find in a Library” interface.
  • Be there on the Web with quick, trustworthy answers—no downloads or special software needed.
  • Contact with specific subject reference experts from multilingual, science, medical, cultural, educational and many other reference areas provide extensive resources.
  • Contribute a fraction of the total hours in a week to the optional Cooperative and in return receive full 24-hours-a-day, 7-days-a-week coverage.
  • Better control over reference. QuestionPoint tools give deeper insights into user needs and staffing requirements.
  • Much less expensive and easier to implement than building your own around-the-clock staffing solution from scratch.
  • Personalized implementation services simplify your library’s start-up.

Collaboration improves results

Working together works best. QuestionPoint helps your reference librarians work together as a service team. Libraries and organizations are committed to collaborative, digital reference and to sharing their expert resources to answer questions for library users everywhere.

By joining the 24/7 Reference Cooperative, the library staff has a more efficient means of serving your customers’ information needs. As a participating library in the Cooperative, your library doors remain open for customers even when the library itself is closed.

Cooperative coverage means that each member library is contributing a small amount of reference hours while gaining coverage 24 hours, 7 days a week. And, while the number of customers grows monthly, you can meet this demand without adding staff. Librarians who participate in cooperative virtual reference report that their reference skills improve as they are able to spend their time answering reference questions from a variety of customers (instead of directional questions). These librarians often become subject experts and find they are depended on for answers in their topic of expertise. Over time, many such topic experts develop and become a useful resource for other librarians in their own local library network, or even in a larger national network of libraries.

Broaden your answering power

The Global Reference Network

Globally, the QuestionPoint collaborative network is a powerful way to connect libraries and to answer user needs, but it is only part of the whole picture.

QuestionPoint uses best-match routing from the Global Reference Network to find the institution best able to answer a question. All librarians in the network may contribute to the Global Knowledge Base of previously asked and answered reference questions. Once a question is submitted it goes into the local reference librarian’s queue of new questions. The librarian can choose to:

  • Respond directly to the user by answering the question or asking for clarification if needed
  • Assign it to another librarian
  • Refer it to another librarian within their institution or reference group
  • Route it to another library participating in the QuestionPoint Global Reference Network

As records accumulate, the next time a similar question requires research, the Global Knowledge Base becomes a primary discovery source, saving all QuestionPoint members time and money.

The knowledge base

QuestionPoint’s Knowledge Base is a database of questions and answers, added by member libraries. It is searchable by subject or keyword. Each library can maintain a local Knowledge Base controlled by the subscribing library or library group. Libraries can also contribute to (and use) the Global Knowledge Base, a resource for reference support and discovery work, cooperatively built by all QuestionPoint members.

Librarians may add records to the local Knowledge Base not only from library users’ online questions, but also from walk-up questions, telephone reference questions, and even from locally-maintained stumpers files. The local Knowledge Base becomes a key reference source customized to your library and its users’ needs, saving time for the reference staff. Specialized local information or questions unique to your users grow into an invaluable archive. The local Knowledge Base tools allow your staff to work more efficiently and to focus more energy on the new and complex questions not already available in the Knowledge Base. The library user also benefits from shortened response time and enhanced service.

As the Knowledge Base grows, its use as an effective reference discovery tool grows. And libraries can make both the Global and local Knowledge Bases available to users, right from the library web site.