Virtual Reference

I might not have time today to get to this next topic today, since I am currently actually staffing a virtual reference service, but today on the way to work I was thinking about my experiences last night with VR and have concluded that VR actually makes our patrons lazier. Instead of coming into the library to do real research - like I had to in college and grad school - they can now go online and ask librarians questions through email, text, and chat. I always thought that part of the assignment was actually doing the research yourself, but every week I get a few people who are just trying to get easy answers without spending any effort. I will write more on this later. Now off to experiment with mailchimp...