Rebecca Brumley provides this book with CD-Rom with solutions, new ideas for service in your library, and comparisons to measure your policies against.

This handbook demonstrates how to adapt traditional face-to-face reference interview skills to the virtual interview, and how to interpret and use new communication techniques - chat slang, IM shorthand, emoticons, etc - to better serve your users.

All of the forms, surveys and exercises found in this text are reproduced on the CD-ROM, enabling the reader to customize them to suit their needs and situation.

This book is the THE source for information on virtual worlds, covering every aspect of this intriguing and fast-changing social practice and the technologies upon which it rests. Virtual Lives: A Reference Handbook describes the history, development, and role of virtual worlds, also known as virtual environments and immersive virtual environments. It provides detailed background about virtual worlds and their societal impact, from early precursors and inspirations to the latest trends and developments. Specifics on user demographics are included, as are descriptions of virtual worlds' functions, discussion of societal concerns and opportunities, and information about relevant research data and key persons and organizations. Although virtual worlds in their current form are a relatively new phenomenon, other online social environments have served as precursors for decades and literary inspirations go back even further. This handbook therefore covers some early developments dating back to the mid-20th century. Its primary focus, however, is on developments since the mid-1990s and especially on the current state and social impact of virtual worlds, including their impact both in the United States and around the world.

Social web technologies present an often confusing array of options for answering user reference questions. Applying 20 years’ experience as a reference librarian working through the development of virtual reference and the integration of new tools and technologies into the industry, Thomsett-Scott lays out how libraries are using vendor...

Highlights the most important topics, issues, questions, and debates affecting the field of communication in the 21st Century.