Virtual reference service: The provision of Indian university libraries during COVID 19
Author(s): Amita Roy
Abstract - Purpose: This article is aimed to design a checklist of reciprocal communication as virtual reference support for library users and then evaluate reciprocal communication provision of academic library websites in Covid -19 pandemic situation in India.
Design/ methodology/ approach: The present study is conducted for the evaluation of virtual reference service provision in India. The evaluation criteria have been placed through the library website content which evaluate five criteria of virtual reference service and a criteria for remote access link for availability of library resources. The websites of university libraries of all over the world were visited and all possible checklists were collected based on virtual reference service. The literature available on the topic was consulted for this purpose.
Findings: Based on the data collection and analysis the observations, it is found that the website of central universities are the leading position in virtual reference service through social network link and FAQ or ASK service, the state universities have better content awareness than central and deemed universities on e-mail based and subject librarian link based reference service, the website of Indian universities are the unsatisfactory stage to build the provision of chat based reference service.
Limitations: Top fifty university libraries in India according to National Institute of Ranking Framework, 2020 were checked and evaluated content awareness of library website on virtual reference support. The top fifty universities are belonging to central, state and deemed universities. The study was formulated between the periods of 1st January to 31st January, 2021.
Originality/ values: This article is totally original from all aspects and manuscript have not been submitted anywhere previously.
Keywords - virtual reference support, reciprocal communication, remote access, consultancy support.
DOI URL: https://doi.org/10.26761/ijrls.8.4.2022.1581
Cite This Article As: Roy, A. (2022) Virtual reference service: The provision of Indian university libraries during COVID 19. International Journal of Research in Library Science (IJRLS), 8(4) 1-10. www.ijrls.in
Copyright © 2022 Author(s) retains the copyright of this article. This article is published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0.
Paper ID: IJRLS-1581 Page: 1-10 Publication Date: 11 October 2022