I will admit that I used to be pretty down on virtual reference. When the notion that librarians could get on board with unsolicited virtual conversation first started, the grandiose nature of the uptake—punctuated by conferences, scholarly articles, and prolonged navel-gazing discussion of this supposed paradigm shift—made one think that librarians had invented online chat. As with most things of this nature, a cottage industry emerged to support the library clamor for virtual reference (I know some vendors really hate it when I refer to their bread and butter as a cottage industry, but, well . . . tough). There …