FOR RELEASE: IMMEDIATE DATE: 11/12/02

CONTACT: EMILY SILVERMAN, (413) 545-0995

LIBRARY LAUNCHES 24/7 REFERENCE SERVICE

Starting today, November 12, the UMass Amherst Library offers professional librarian reference assistance 24 hours a day, 7 days a week in real time via the Web. The service, known as BLC ASK 24/7, is made possible through a collaborative effort of members of the Boston Library Consortium (BLC). UMass Amherst Library users will access the service from the "Ask a Librarian" web page (http://www.library.umass.edu/ask/).

Ten of the BLC's nineteen members are participating in the initial implementation of the BLC ASK 24/7 service this fall: Boston College, Boston University, Brandeis University, Northeastern University, Tufts University, UMass Amherst, UMass Boston, University of Connecticut, University of New Hampshire, and Williams College.

The BLC ASK 24/7 service is staffed by professional reference librarians located in the BLC member libraries and by professional reference librarians from around the world. Librarians from the BLC participating libraries will cover the BLC ASK 24/7 service weekdays from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

This live reference service offers an educational alternative to the web search engines used by researchers and students working at odd hours of the day or night. Now, professional library research assistance is just a click away, at any time.

Founded in 1970, the Boston Library Consortium (http://www.blc.org) is a cooperative association of nineteen academic and research libraries. Its purpose is to share human and information resources so that the collective strengths of the group advance the research and learning of the members' constituents. The BLC supports resource sharing and enhancement of services to users through programs in cooperative collecting, access to electronic resources, access to physical collections, and enhanced interlibrary loan and document delivery.

For more information about the BLC ASK 24/7 service, contact Anne C. Moore, Reference Services, W.E.B. Du Bois Library, 545-0148 or annem@library.umass.edu.