Enhancing community and collaboration in the virtual library

The advent of the virtual library is usually presented as a welcome development for library users. Unfortunately, the emphasis which is often placed upon convenience of access tends to reinforce the perception of the use of information resources as a solitary activity. In fact, information retrieval (IR) in the conventional library is often a highly collaborative activity, involving users' peers and experts such as librarians. Failure in the design of virtual library services to take into account the ways in which physical spaces help engender a sense of community and facilitate collaboration will result in its users being denied timely and effective access to valuable sources of assistance. We report an investigation of collaboration issues in IR. We begin by defining a generic model of collaboration, and of collaborative spaces. Finally, we describe the design of a prototype multimedia-based system intended to facilitate a sense of community and collaboration between its users