Arguments Against Real-Time
Virtual Reference
n Lankes and Shostack, 2002
q Make a good case for e-mail reference
q No reason given for not providing real-time virtual
reference
n McKinzie and Lauer, 2002
q Overrated and fraught with administrative difficulties
q Specifically they felt that librarians couldn’t “model
habits of information trolling and gathering”
q But, page pushing used more than 60% of the time by
some real-time virtual reference services