The growth in the use of electronic resources and an increasingly self sufficient user base that relies on other electronic tools to find satisfactory answers to their questions has been a contributing factor to the sharp decline in the use of face-to-face reference in libraries. Libraries must therefore take advantage of emerging technologies to reach and serve the ever increasing user base that does not enter the library as their first choice for reference. An approach to serving this user base isto provide real-time live chat services to meet the user at their point of need. Libraries that make themselves available to users by providing synchronous live chat service extend their services beyond the traditional face-to-face reference and providea new component to their library services. However, many considerations must take place before a library can proceed with entering the virtual reference service arena. Software selection, service hours, training staff, promotion, and ensuring quality are but a few of the considerations that must be taken into account. An additional layer is added to such a service when it is a collaborative service that includes not only many participating libraries, but multitype libraries.
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