THE E-MAIL REFERENCE INTERVIEW

As electronic reference services continue to broaden in scope and comp lex requests are negotiated via e-mail, the e-mail reference interview will became commonplace. The difficulties of conducting e-mail refere nce interviews have been noted in the literature, but research in this area is lacking. A three-phased project at the College of Library and Information Services (CLIS) at the University of Maryland was underta ken to begin to explore the e-mail reference process. This paper, whic h focuses on the e-mail reference interview, discusses differences bet ween e-mail reference interviews and those conducted using other media , presents a taxonomy of approaches to e-mail reference interviews, pr oposes the use of a systematic approach to e-mail reference interviews , and introduces a model e-mail reference interview. The results sugge st that reference interviews can be conducted via e-mail for some comp lex questions. However, further testing is required by experienced int ermediaries working under the pressures of client deadlines and instit utional constraints.