THE WORLD WIDE WEB: How the Reference Department of a Medium-sized American Public Library Uses It?

Michael Charton

Parsippany Public Library
Parsippany, NJ 07054, USA
E-mail: Charton@main.morris.org

The purpose of this paper is to show how the Reference Department of a medium-Sized American library uses the World Wide Web (WWW) to answer reference questions and to provide better reference services..

This paper is based on both our own experiences as well as the survey results of our library users (see Appendix 1).

 1. INTRODUCTION

This paper will share the experience on how the World Wide Web (WWW) is used at the Reference Department of Parsippany Public Library in Parsippany, New Jersey, USA, a Medium-Sized public library.

WWW originally developed by a group of physicists at CERN Laboratories in Switzerland.

As with the Internet, until relatively recently, it was used mainly by scientists. In the last couple of years, the use of WWW has grown exponentially, and thus has become very popular among libraries. Via WWW, one is able to browse from one web site to the other, and within one web site, one cans access all types of information -- text (including full-text documents), image, sound, and even moving video -- by clicking on the highlighted area of a web page. These information sources are hyperlinked from one to the other. It is easy to stray sometimes while navigating the WWW, but one always learns something.

2. THE USE OF WWW IN THE PARSIPPANY LIBRARY

2.1. The Parsippany Library and Morris County Automated Network

A little about Parsippany, New Jersey. It is a township of 48,000 in North Central New Jersey. It is 30 miles due West of New York City and an hour from the Delaware River and Pennsylvania. Parsippany is in Morris County, which for the purposes of this paper it is important to know. This is because the 32 public libraries of Morris County, and the library at the County College of Morris are on the same computer system. Therefore, we have the same Internet system. Morris County has a DRA system and the name of it is MAIN, which stands for Morris Automated Information Network.

The Township of Parsippany ranges from Upper Middle Class Professional to immigrant working class. Parsippany has a large immigrant community from India and Taiwan, as well as corporate office parks and many people who work in town, but live elsewhere.

The township covers 27 square miles and the Parsippany Public Library has three branches -- The Parsippany Branch where the administration is (this is where I work), the Lake Hiawatha branch, and a small branch in a neighborhood called Mt. Tabor. Mt. Tabor was originally a community run by the Methodist Church. It is still one where one has to be approved by a planning board in order to live in there. The library is more than 100 years old. Before 1970, the three libraries were independent private libraries.

The WWW is very useful for the Mt. Tabor Branch, because the building is an old small house and has a limited reference collection. Almost all of their reference questions have to be answered elsewhere. Later, there will be a discussion on how Parsippany Library Reference gets answers to questions from larger libraries. We get several hundred reference questions a week at the reference desk.

2.2. The History of Internet connection at Parsippany

The Morris County Internet Connection was set up in August 1993 by the Branch Manager of the Lake Hiawatha Branch of the Parsippany Library, and the computer system has been paid for by MAIN, which acts as a corporation. Each library pays a yearly payment, based on a formula. The Internet connection is a part of this.

The computer system contains the borrower information, cataloging information, bibliographic information and miscellaneous functions. These are on the staff computers. The OPACS or computers for the public have the catalogs, for the books, a magazine and newspaper database. MORENET is the Morris County gopher. Then is our web connection and ways to contact local politicians, as well as class schedules for the County College of Morris.

2.3. Drawbacks of the Web

Along with the advantages and pleasures of the WWW, there are drawbacks as well. To start though, when Morris County started the Internet Connection, many people saw it as a toy. Even I saw it as something that was going to be wonderful for me professionally, but could not imagine then what it was going to do for my patrons. I have learned a fair bit since then, and I am always learning something new every day about what the Internet can do. It can be nothing BUT a toy, if you choose not to learn what it has.

The drawbacks of the World Wide Web can be summarized as follows:

• Everything is voluntary. Web Pages can disappear. I check favorite pages regularly. Has anyone who uses the web gone into a favorite site and suddenly found it isn't there any longer? The person who put it up may have done it on his worksite and they no longer work there. The site is gone and you are not imagining it.

• A disaster at a site can mean all is ruined. I have a personal story about that. On February 3, 1996, a sprinkler disaster destroyed 4,000 books. Many of the books still in print are being replaced. But with a web site, it is gone!

• The veracity, accuracy and objectivity of websites can be a problem. Do any of you go into Newsgroups? That is a case of quoting "experts" but do you really know who these people are? With print materials, there is an extensive review system to help the librarian look for shoddy, biased or misleading works. You can read a review in a professional journal and it will tell you whether the book is suitable for your collection.

• Quality is a real problem. It is very easy to publish on the Web. No one really checked or edited the web site. Out in cyberspace, they went.
 
 

 2.4. Searching on the Web

The web is like digging for gold. You may find many rocks, but the nugget of gold is important and you are doing your patrons a disservice to not take advantage of what is out there.

Are there searches that you do not need the Web for? Yes. If you want to look up who invented the fluorescent light bulb, you go to Famous First Facts. You will get the answer faster there then you would logging in and searching on the World Wide Web. For certain other facts on a country, an Almanac is faster. This would be the case for many of the assignments the schoolkids come in with.

Well. You want to begin searching the Web. There are two steps here:

1. If you have addresses you know, you can just begin searching. You need to type the full address as it has been given to you and be careful of whether upper or lower case is specified. An address would be like the ones I have, typed just as you see them.

2. Supposing, though you just have a subject. Now how do you go about it? This is where the web search engine comes in. The search engine provides you with a keyword structure to find suitable web pages.

Search Engines

There are several web search engines, such as WebCrawler, Lycos, Opentext, Yahoo, Alta Vista, etc. I started using WebCrawler, a search engine owned by my provider, America Online. It is easy to use, but does not yield as many web pages as some of the others. One of my favorite is Yahoo. It is organized and cataloged by professional librarians.

Any of these search engines can be used by typing the search terms in on the line provided. The more words in the search, the better, so that one can narrow the number of websites searched. For those who have searched Dialog in the past, similar ways to phrase searches can be used.

Different engines may yield different web pages. For most search engines, one has to apply to have his/her web page indexed. But, Alta Vista is an exception, that is know for its comprehensive coverage of web pages. Thus, for me, I start my search with Yahoo, then use Alta Vista when the search results is negative.

How is searching done at the Parsippany Library ? Before July 1, 1996, on the public terminals; patrons had to go in through the Morris County Gopher, MORENET and connect through Telnet with New Jersey Institute of Technology's Web browser. Now, the public just goes to the Main Menu and find Line Four on it that is our browser. They can also browse the other public libraries in the county that have web pages.

What can one REALLY search with the web? Almost anything. Clearly, one is not going to search very basic questions, but one's professional judgment will be able to decide what to search on the web and what not to. Be mindful that when searching for a patron one is not lost in cyberspace.

2.5. Some Sample Searches on the Web

The following are some of the sample searches on the web, and reasons for using the Web rather than alternative reference sources are given:

• The first major search I did was for a business student. She worked for United Parcel Service, a major American shipper with a facility in Parsippany. She was a graduate student at Rutgers University and doing her project on United Parcel. I used the terms United Parcel Service and came up with http://www.ups.com. It had a history of the company, chief officers and financial information. The UPS home page was able to provide the student what she wanted and she was able to print the information right in the Parsippany Public Library.

Without going to the WWW, her options would be less attractive:

1. Call the Newark or the New York Public Business Library for possible information.

2. See if she could get a business report from the company directly.

3. See if she could interview someone in the company.

4. Call Regional Reference (The Morris County Library, or Wayne (New Jersey) Public Library) and let them work on the question.

• The second question was someone who was moving to Boston and wanted information on health care providers there. Without what we found on the WWW, she would have had to know someone in those companies. She needed the information for an interview. So she could hardly call someone in Harvard or Pilgrim Health Care for help.

• The third question that came in was the most heart wrenching. It was a woman who wanted to bring information to an attorney. She was trying to divorce her spouse, because he is a war veteran suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I found an article written by an army captain who is also a psychiatrist.

Why didn't I just give her books? There are books out there, but many of them are for clinicians dealing with the problem. I had trouble understanding some of the terms. This individual I realized, would have been thoroughly lost.

 The best way to do searches is to use the narrowest possible terms and work one's way to broader terms. As with any other reference search, if a web search is too specific, the search result will oftentimes be negative. Then, we have to expand to broader terms. I had a lucky experience when a student asked for a very specific search on American secondary students who said they used drugs. I found a web site of the University of Michigan's School of Education that did just that.

The Parsippany Branch's Reference Department answers 95% of the reference questions asked. For us, we are lucky by being in a heavily populated area with larger libraries nearby so that we can send refer the requester if Parsippany doesn't have something. But for a more isolated library, sending someone to the Morris County Library or to the New York Public Library is not an option? We then need the WWW much more!

2.6. Library's Own Web Page

This leads to the next topic. Should your library have its own web page? The answer to that is a definite YES! The Parsippany Public Library had its web page (http:www.parsippany.net) up at the end of June 1996. This is a great way to advertise the library.

Each library's web page is different since it is developed by different people. But they do contain some similar information on each library such as library hours, requirements for a library card, etc. The library web page should also linked to those sites that are frequently used either by the patrons or by library staff to provide services.

For example, for us, we link our site to that of the New Jersey Department of Personnel, which provides the state civil service listings. The State of New Jersey issues a free monthly newspaper for free distribution to libraries. Now, these listings are on the WWW. The patron can just come in and search on the terminals.

Parsippany Library continues to look for useful sites to add our links to.

For libraries which are more isolated than Parsippany, it is even more useful to link themselves to other sites in order to gain access to more needed information for coping with their reference questions.

Our survey also reveals that many people do have home computers in Morris County. Thus, they can dial in on a modem from home to gain needed information.

2.7. Web Browsers

A quick word about web browsers is necessary since one will not be able to do any web searches with them. Morris County uses Lynx, but my favorite is Netscape, which I have on my AT&T account at home. Lynx can transmit only text files, while Netscape, as well as browsers like Mosaic, can access files other than text, such as graphic, sound, and digital video. However, it is important to keep in mind that the graphics can be fun but can take long to transmit.

2.8. Training the Library Patrons

Training of the public to take advantage of the WWW is necessary. But, in order to be able to do so, library staff need to keep up with the latest Internet/WWW developments. In the Parsippany Public Library, both Parsippany and Lake Hiawatha Branches offer classes for library users on Internet and World Wide Web.

In addition, we are also advertising more in the community about our training offerings. We are reaching out to those small businesses who do not have company libraries and the schools. Experience tells me that many businessmen in our community do not know much about the Web yet and they are glad that the library can help.

3. CONCLUSION

In many way, the WWW is wonderful for some of the reference work . But, it will not replace the traditional libraries. Electronic information is essential for some, but few will want to read classics, such as War And Peace by Tolstoy, online?

To conclude then, where are we going with the WWW for reference work in the library? My educated guesses are: Reference work in a library such as the Parsippany Public Library will increase because of the WWW. More people, knowing that we can do certain WWW searches, will ask for our help in order to obtain those useful web-based information that is not otherwise attainable in your library.

The mission of the Parsippany Public Library states that we are primarily a library for adults by acquiring popular materials. Thus, we do not possess specialized reference sources. The WWW gives us an avenue to provide those materials. Clearly the public library will not be replaced by this technology, but technology can help us to do our jobs better. For the Parsippany Public Library, we have benefited substantially from the WWW by being able to serve our patrons better.
 
 

APPENDIX 1. SURVEY ON THE USE OF WWW AT PARSIPPANY*

1. What Kind of Library Do You Work In?

A. Public? B. Academic?

C. Special (Government, Association)? D. Corporate?

2. What Were You Looking for in This Session?

3. For The Public Librarians; Are You in :

A. A Major Urban Public Library? B. A Medium Sized Public Library?

(A Small City or Suburb)?

C. A Rural Library.

Is it One Town?

Is it Several Counties or Another Large Area?

4. Do You Have One Building, or a Headquarters and Branches?

5. What is the Socio-Economic Level of Your Community? Would You Describe Them as:

A. Urban and Professional? B. Urban and Skilled Working Class?

C. Urban Poor. D. Suburban

E. Rural.

6. Predominate Education Level of Your Community?

A. Post Graduate Studies. B. University Level.

C. Secondary School D. Grade School

E. High Illiteracy Level

7. What Sort of Computer Training in the Schools is Done if Any?

8. What Percentage of Your Community Have Home Computers?

9. Which Country Are You From?

10. Is it an:

A. Industrialized Country B. Developing Country

11. What Is Local Telephone Service Like?

A. Do You Have Frequent Phone Outages?

12. Who Are Your Local Internet Providers?

A. What Kind of Service Do They Deliver?

13. Who Mainly Has Internet Access in Your Country?

14. What Are The Typical Uses for It?

15. How Do You Pay for Your Service and How Much Is It?

16. Do You Have an Internet Connection in Your Library Now?

A. If So, How Is it Set Up? B. What level of Internet Training Does Your Staff Have?