• Journal of the Korean BIBLIA Society for library and Information Science
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.51-65
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• 2009

This study attempted to investigate users' information needs in an educational research library, which delivers web-based digital reference services to library users, by analyzing reference questions asked by remote users. A total of 242 questions from two electronic bulletin boards was examined in terms of 6 types of questions asked and 23 subareas of education. The study found that 56.1% of reference questions on the library bulletin board were pure reference questions in curriculum, textbooks and teaching & instruction. Suggestions for effective use of digital reference services were made: easy access to menu services, use of web forms, development of digital reference systems providing search functions and response functions.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.319-338
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• 2003

The aim of this paper is to examine the sentence final tonal patterns of English wh-questions through phonetic experiments, based on Intonational Phonology, and to explain the meaning of the final phrase tones of English wh-questions. Pierrehumbert and Hirschberg (1990) suggested that it is pitch accents rather than boundary tones which play a crucial role in the meaning of a sentence, and that most of the general questions have H-H% tonal patterns in the sentence final. However, they could not explain why wh-questions had final falling tonal patterns (L-L%). While Bartels (1999) suggested that L phrase tone has the meaning of 'ASSERTION' and it could be applied to the explanation of the meaning of wh-questions' final tonal patterns. However, her suggestions are only theoretical explanation without any experimental support. In this paper, based on Bartels (1999), the data was classified into the following three classes: 1) echo wh-questions, 2) reference questions, and 3) common wh-questions. Using this data, a production test by three English native speakers was conducted. The results show that reference questions and common wh-questions have L phrase tones in the sentence final at a high rate, and echo wh-questions have H phrase tones in the sentence final at a high rate.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Library and Information Science
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• v.35 no.4
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• pp.123-139
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• 2001

Describes the impact of electronic communication media on communications among reference librarians and explores the usabilities of the mailing list as an efficient means of reference services. Out of messages made to the library mailing list over the one-year period of the study, 594 postings dealing with reference questions were examined. The types of questions and the rate of responses were analyzed and some limitations to the implementation of the malling list on answering the reference questions were discussed.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Library and Information Science
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• v.23
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• pp.127-163
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• 1992

The proper evaluation of reference services requires qualitative approach as well as quantitative one. The quality of a reference service can be evaluated by how promptly and accurately a librarian responds to the user's questions and also by how much the user is satisfied with the librarian's overall performance in providing the answer. In this study, the reference service of an university library was evaluated by the following procedure : 1. Identification of a group of the most frequently referred Korean government publications through two pre-tests of user surveys. 2. Preparation of 130 questions of bibliographic and factual type from the above publications. 3. Selection of 30 questions which can be answered from the collection of the evaluated library. 4. Mimic requests of reference service by 5 proxies trained on the unobtrusive test method with 30 questions asked at various times of the day and on various days of the week during a period of 5 months. 5. Drawing up of response sheets (by proxies) with descriptive comments on library staffs' question administration, response, attitude, etc. 6. Preparation and coding of data tabulation sheets and final analysis. The conclusions of this study are as follows : 1. The user serveys showed that needs for the library service for government publications were great. The $80\%$ of the government publications users were visiting more than two organizations for access to information and the $37\%$ were getting information directly from the publishers. 2. The librarians of the evaluated library could give correct answers to $53\%$ of 30 (bibliographic and factual) guestions. 3. The correctness of answer was independent of the length of the time spent the librarians. The librarians' grasp of the questions and direction of approach determined the success or failure of the service. 4. The librarians relied too much on the reference library catalog which doesn't include many of the government publications of their own collection. 5. The $79\%$ of the failure of the service were due to the librarians' lack of knowledge as to the information source for government publications and the unsystematic method of approach to it.

• Journal of the Korean Society for information Management
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.125-142
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• 2001

This study attempts to identify users' potential information needs in a medium-sized academic library by analyzing reference questions raised by library users for 64 days from October 10th to December 13th, 2000. A total of 474 reference questions were analysed of which only 10.1% were pure reference questions that dealt with the professional knowledge of reference librarians. 71.0% had nothing to do with professional knowledge, being directional(29.3%), mechanic(23.8%), and library policy related(l7.9%). Improvements in sign system and guiding materials in the library should be made to deliver reference services of good quality to academic library users.

• Journal of the Korean BIBLIA Society for library and Information Science
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.101-123
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• 2021

This study analyses the questions and answers contained in the Knowledge Information Database of the collaborative digital reference service, 'Ask a librarian'. And based on the results of status of user requests, this study draws information usage behavior in the early stages of the service was derived. 1,124 Knowledge Information Database items out of 3,506 cases was analyzed by nine criterion. ① Number of questions and whether to be reference questions, ② Subject and keywords of the question, ③ Purpose of the question, ④ Type of question, ⑤ User's information request, ⑥ Information source and reference services provided by the librarian, ⑦ Number of days to answer, ⑧ Level of the participating library, ⑨ Question type by topic. As a results of analysis, first, users asked for reference questions from various topics as needed, rather than one from a similar topic at a time, but more than half of the total pure reference questions were from the field of library information science. Second, about 71.35% of users were using the 'Ask a librarian' service to recommend a list of information resources related to a particular topic or research problem, and there were also questions that required consultation on the reading situation. Third, the most preferred sources of information for users were bibliography, and in the case of online information sources, users did not relatively prefer them. Fourth, the number of days required to answer was able to confirm significant differences depending on the type of question and the level of the participating library. Fifth, 31.33% of the purpose of the general field question showed that were self-generated.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Library and Information Science
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• v.49 no.1
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• pp.483-511
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• 2015

The efficiency and quality of the social reference sites are being challenged because a large quantity of the questions have not been answered or satisfied for quite a long time. Main goal of this study is to investigate important factors that affect the performance of question triage to relevant answerers in the context of social reference. To achieve the goal, expert finding techniques were used to construct an automated question triage approach to resolve this problem. Furthermore, important factors affecting triage decisions in digital reference were first examined, and extended them to the social reference setting by investigating important factors affecting the performance of automated question triage in the social reference setting. The study was conducted using question-answer pairs collected from Ask Metafilter. For the evaluation, logistic regression analyses were conducted to examine which factors would significantly affect the performance of predicting relevant answerers to questions. The results of the current study have important implications for research and practice in automated question triage for social reference. Furthermore, the results will offer insights into designing user-participatory digital reference systems.

• Journal of the Korean Society for information Management
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.175-193
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• 2013

This study aims to investigate the current state of digital reference services using electronic bulletin boards in Korean academic libraries and to suggest improvements. Through the examination of 205 academic library websites, 56 libraries were identified to use electronic bulletin for digital references. The digital reference service questions and responses from four libraries were further analyzed: the types of reference question, the structure and accuracy of answers, and digital reference completion time. The implications of this study for future research and practice lie in its provision of a systematic way to design practical guidelines for virtual reference services.

• Publications of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.1-7
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• 1992

We may consider the following three fundamental epistemological questions concerning cosmology. Can cosmology at last understand the origin of the universe? Can computers at last create? Can life be formed at last synthetically? These questions are in some sense related to the liar paradox containing the self-reference and, therefore. may not be answered by recursive processes in finite time. There are, however. various implications such that the chaos may break the trap of the self-reference paradox. In other words, Goedel's incompleteness theorem would not apply to chaos, even if the chaos can be generated by recursive processes. Internal relations among cosmology, epistemology and chaos must be investigated in greater detail.

• Journal of the Korean BIBLIA Society for library and Information Science
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.159-178
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• 2003

Electronic reference service was defined as reference service designed for remote users and identified by a specific link from a library' website. This study examined whether academic libraries deliver web-based electronic reference services to remote users. Particularly, four types of electronic bulletin board services, free bulletin board, FAQ, Q＆A and reference question-response service were measured in terms of 8 types of questions and 12 contents of questions. The result showed that there was few differences among 4 services. Guidelines for effective use of electronic bulletin board services in academic libraries were suggested: standardization of service names, easy access to menu services, definition of each menu, search function for contents and standard web forms.