A study on the status and services of virtual reference desk in governmental university libraries of Iran

The general aim of this study is to evaluate the virtual reference desk in the websites of governmental university libraries.
The research method was survey.The statistical population is consisted of 90 websites of governmental university libraries of Iran that were taken from university ranking services (www.4icu.org).
Findings: Findings show that among 90 studied universities, 22 universities are in Tehran, and 62 universities are in other cities. 66.7% of universities have a direct link, and 15% have an indirect one at university homepage. 41% of them have a kind of virtual reference desk and 55% don’t have a link for it. 77% of virtual reference desks use a web form that most of them have limited items.
Only 11 websites have a written policy, FAQ questions, and so on. Findings also show that only 2 virtual reference desks were active and answered the research questions.