QandANJ.org is the brainchild
of the South Jersey Regional Library Cooperative, a multi-type library
cooperative that serves over 560 libraries in the southern seven
counties of New Jersey.
In the fall of 2000, SJRLC funded the startup costs of a pilot virtual
reference project with 10 participating libraries, or service providers
-- six public libraries, two college libraries, and one special library
from South Jersey.
As part of its mission to support cooperative opportunities among its
member libraries, SJRLC was looking for and found in virtual reference a
service that would "go where the people are", enhance the
marketability of libraries, and help develop and recruit library staff.
QandANJ.org wasn't a South Jersey-only project for long. Even as the
planning team was selecting a vendor and laying down group norms, libraries from outside the
cooperative were expressing interest in joining the project.
In the spring of 2001, nine new libraries from South and Central Jersey
came aboard. The broader participation qualified the project for
Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) grant funding through the
State Library.
The grant application was successful and included a full-time Project
Coordinator, a critical resource to a purposely growing project.
On October 1, 2001, QandANJ went "live" to the New Jersey
public, open 44 hours per week: 1 - 11 PM Monday through Thursday and 1
- 5 PM on Friday.
On January 28, 2002, four months old and seven additional libraries
stronger, QandANJ.org expanded its hours to always open.
(Overnights and weekend hours were outsourced to professional
librarians. Today, a combination of freelancers, QuestionPoint's
24/7 nationwide Coverage Cooperative, and participating libraries cover these
"hard-to-staff" hours.) Usage grew by 600% during its
first month of 24/7 service. Surprisingly, most of the growth was
during the hours the service was already open. Usage never
declined from that burst and has steadily climbed with spreading
awareness and repeat visitors.
Today, 47 libraries and library systems from all four
library regional cooperatives staff the service for the entire
state. Three to five librarians are online at any time, fielding
as many as 25-30 calls per hour, on average, during peak times.
QandANJ.org has also offered online author/expert chats and live tutoring help.
In September 2004, six new academic libraries joined the QandANJ service to help staff a specialized service for college and university
students.
QandANJ.org is in its seventh year of LSTA funding and will be joined by
more libraries in 2007-2008.
For more project background,
see Computers in Libraries: "Managing a Statewide Virtual
Reference Service: How Q and A NJ Works" by Peter Bromberg (April
2003, Volume 23 Issue 4, p26, 6p ). Full Text is available through
EBSCOhost.
