In addition to serving Congress, the Library of Congress provides reference service to the public in its 21 reading rooms and through its Web site. During the year the Library's staff handled more than 680,000 reference requests that were received in-person, on the telephone, and through written and electronic correspondence. Nearly 1.3 million items were circulated for use within the Library.
Digital Reference. The Library is a leader in providing Web-based reference and information services. Initiated in 1999 as the Collaborative Digital Reference Service, its successor, QuestionPoint, has grown to a membership of more than 800 libraries around the world, providing reference service to patrons, any time of day or night, through their local libraries' Web site. This service, which is available to libraries by subscription, is free for library patrons. During the year, the Digital Reference Team answered nearly 13,991 QuestionPoint inquiries.
The Library also continued to operate the "Ask a Librarian" service, by which a question can be submitted and answered (within five business days) through an interactive form on the Library's Web site. The service, which is supported by the QuestionPoint software, includes a live-chat feature that allows researchers to consult a reference librarian in real time via e-mail. During the year, the Digital Reference Team conducted 1,130 live chat sessions.
