I thought your comment about using online sources was interesting. In the past, you’ve criticized virtual reference librarians for this very thing (“…when we tell people we’re providing them with librarians but what we give them are MLS-educated people with access to the Internet … what are we providing?”, http://www.librarian.net/stax/1837/massanswers-a-247-ref-project-answers-my-question-sort-of/)

I quote you all the time, because it’s awesome. It’s one of the questions that I hope librarians were thinking about amidst their board-slamming. Another one is, what is the middle ground between online question-asking/answering communities and library reference services?

I think one of the things that has made AskMe so great and successful is what I have started to call ‘over the fence reference’. These are not just complete strangers answering “off the tops of our heads” but a community of users with real and valuable experience, just like yelling over your fence and saying “hey Bob, can you help me with the idle on my lawnmower.” I am a bit worried that a lot of outsiders coming in not familiar with how a particular community functions may do more harm than good.

That said, I highly recommend anyone who has not joined Metafilter/AskMetafilter yet to do so. It is well worth the $5 and you can see how an amazing web community ask/answer board works (with expert help and guidance form Jessamyn).