August 25th, 2007
IU and ChaCha partner to create first of its kind academic search service
http://newsinfo.iu.edu/news/page/normal/6102.html
(JK told this news to me. Thanks, JK!)
ChaCha: search + brainpower | Simple Access, Better Answers
http://www.chacha.com/
(Human-Guided Search: Real-time Chats + Search Results by humans at this time. I tried this service tonight. From a view point of search engines, that was a new experience. I would like to support any attempt at novelty. But it was a little bit difficult for me to have a chat to explain what I really want only with short texts, to estimate the results given by the guide continuously, and to tell what I was feeling in a polite manner, at once in addition. 
Of course, most chat-based systems have these characteristics.)
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August 23rd, 2007
DIS 245 “Info Access” Encyclopedia - An encyclopedia for reference service…
http://ucla245.pbwiki.com/
DIS 245 “Info Access” Encyclopedia / Linda Smith
http://ucla245.pbwiki.com/Linda%20Smith
(as a memory of today’s LEEP class by Prof. Smith)
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August 21st, 2007
DLIST - Reference Service
http://dlist.sir.arizona.edu/2001/
Ranganathan, S. R. (1961) Reference Service. Asia Publishing House (Bombay).
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April 12th, 2007
Jo Kibbee
Librarians without Borders? Virtual Reference Service to Unaffiliated Users
Virtual service, real data: results of a pilot study
She is one of the best librarians that I have met. She knows many things about theories and practices of digital reference services.
Additionally she is very kind to foreigners like me. 
The good librarian is always on the side of the socially vulnerable.
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April 11th, 2007
The uniref.org has launched a new site “uniref.org cms” which was created with the content management system “XOOPS Cube“.
There will be some experimental services on this site.
In the beginning, I have started to collect the information about reference services and am offering the RSS collection of journals on reference services now.
Check it out!
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January 16th, 2007
Google Trends: information service, reference service
http://www.google.com/trends?q=information+service%2C+reference+servi ce
Of course Information Service has swept to victory in this battle. Libraries are also using “Information Service” instead of “Reference Service”. But which term makes question-answer services with resources stand out on the net, outside libraries?
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