DIGITAL REFERENCE SERVICE

Abstract

The original conception of Reference and Information Service (RIS) is a projection of the union and harmony of all the existing sectors, services and human resources at the library for taking care of the informational necessities of the users. As a current alternative to the necessities, it appears the Digital Reference Service, offered by World Wide Web, that makes possible the user to consult a Unit of Information by means of a professional of the information - librarian, and to receive coherent and necessary answers to its informational questioning. We aimed at the identification of how Service of Reference and Digital Information has been used in units of information, with prominence to the Digital Libraries, pointing types, characteristics and the forms of operation of the services available nowadays. Through the revision of literature in the area of Science of the Information, we studied a theoretical referencial about the Digital Reference Service, also emphasizing the planning and the administration of this type of service and the paper of the librarian of digital reference. In this way, we can affirm that the Digital Reference Service only comes to add and to optimize the services and products for digital libraries, making possible an interaction greater between librarian, system of information and user, in digital environment, that it can culminate in a greater efficiency and effectiveness of this type of Unit of Information - the digital library.