Briefs: Softlink Europe Open New Online Shope; Blinkx and ChaCha Announce Partnership
+ On one hand we're happy to see both Blinkx and Q&A service, ChaCha getting some notice with their new partnership with multimedia search powerhouse Blinkx. To put it mildly, Blinkx has been on a roll of late with new multimedia content deals with National Geographic and PBS. Today's announcement says that ChaCha "guides: will be able to include video results from the Blinkx database when a guide finds content of potential value in the Blinkx database.
On the other hand, once again the library community and its many Q&A services from interactive 24x7x365 chat services from thousands of libraries from around the world that participate in OCLC's QuestionPoint (here's an example from California), Tutor.com, and many other services including the Library of Congress, ENQUIRE (UK) and AskNow in Australia which have been available long before 2006, get overlooked. Is money the issue? No. These are all free services. Btw, the problem is not ChaCha's in the least. Quit the opposite. They have every right to offer the service. The sad part is that library services (where professionals provide access to a wide variety of tools and resources (often including remote access to full text databases, books, and research methodology) remain overlooked or quite simply, unknown. Many libraries do great work with "virtual reference" and the question is what can they do (as a group?, separately?) to get people to know about them and know that those answering the questions are professionally trained, often in a specialized field of information retrieval?
The Softlink shop will enable clients and non-clients to buy peripheral items, barcode labels and training workshops over the internet 24/7, with the product range available to be expanded in the near future. Softlink managing director, Alasdair Darroch, explains, "This online capability will allow customers to buy a whole range of products and services any time and from anywhere. Payments can be made by using a credit or debit Card and Softlink's UK Supported Customers can also place an order and receive an invoice for payment through the normal route. Overseas clients are particularly appreciative of the new site as they can now order anytime without having to fit into UK office working hours."
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