• Journal of the Korean Society for Library and Information Science
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• v.37 no.2
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• pp.169-186
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• 2003

Most of the university libraries in Korea provide digital reference service(DRS), but the use of DRS is very low. The low usage of DRS seems to result from the lack of subject librarians, of staff, of public relations, and of managers' enthusiastic attitude and understanding of DRS. It is difficult to solve these problems because of the poor circumstances in universities. The collaborative digital reference service(CDRS) is a solution to these problems. Not only CDRS costs little but also can provide reference services in many different subject areas. Though subject specialist librarian, user-friendly system interface, system programs and administrative supports are necessary to implement CDRS, the education and training of the subject specialist librarians is the most important work to be done in the university library situation in Korea.

• Journal of Korean Library and Information Science Society
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• v.47 no.4
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• pp.69-91
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• 2016

The purposes of this article are to raise the quality issues of Collaborative Digital Reference Services(CDRS) in Korean libraries and to suggest the feasible solutions to resolve the quality problems of CDRS. To the end, a thorough examination on the development process and present condition of main Korean CDRS such as 'Question포인트' and' '사서에게 물어보세요'. This article investigates the causes of 'low quality' in Korean CDRS with emphasizing both technical problems and managerial limitations. Finally suggested are the solutions to improve the low quality of CDRS with special concerns on Korean library situation. Discussions on this article are based on literature review, statistical analysis, and usability tests on the targeted Korean CDRS, '사서에게 물어보세요'(Ask a Librarian in Korean version).