On Tue, 29 Oct 1996, Bobby Jett wrote:

> I am curious if any of you have experienced a dramatic increase
> in the number of reference questions or requests for photocopies
> since you have loaded your finding aids on the WWW?

Requests for photocopies:  No increase.  In fact, I'm finding that people
don't request photocopies this way -- they want to see it before they
fork over the money to copy it.

Reference questions:  Modest increase in the number of reference
questions, and nearly all are quite detailed.  They usually take the form
"I was looking at your Web site and saw that you have X -- can you
tell me about/send me information concerning Y?"

In short -- no, I haven't been overwhelmed with reference requests since
putting finding aids online.

Carole Prietto, University Archivist     phone:  (314) 935-5444
Washington University                    fax:  (314) 935-4045
Box 1061, One Brookings Drive            [log in to unmask]
St. Louis, Missouri 63130
http://library.wustl.edu/~spec/archives/