LC's Reference Project Announces Alliance with OCLC

Staff -- Library Journal, 1/15/2001

In what Project Director Diane Kresh called "a significant step forward," the Library of Congress's ambitious Collaborative Digital Reference Service (CDRS) has signed a one year-agreement with OCLC to provide, software, service, and more to the network. CDRS, with more than 100 library members, aims to "provide professional reference service to researchers any time anywhere, through an international, digital network of libraries and related institutions." While CDRS remains in its third pilot phase, Kresh expects the service to be up and running by April, and hopes to eventually expand it to end-users (rather than via librarians), and to provide real-time service. OCLC will provide various membership support services, help develop software, and work on a Knowledge Base of answers to be used by members. Kresh couldn't quantify the dollar value, but until this agreement, CDRS has been growing thanks to the voluntary contributions of LC and member libraries. A more extensive report on CDRS and e-reference will appear in the February 1 issue of LJ.