Are virtual reference services color blind?

Abstract

This study reports an experiment that examines whether librarians provide equitable virtual reference services to diverse user groups. The relative absence of social cues in the virtual environment may mean greater equality of services though at the same time greater inequalities may arise as librarians can become less self-aware online. Findings indicate that the quality of service librarians provide to African Americans and Arabs is lower than the quality of service they provide to Caucasian, Hispanic, Asian, and Jewish students. This study adds to the knowledge of subjective bias in the virtual environment by specifying those that are discriminated against online, identifying the kinds of discriminatory actions of virtual reference librarians, and identifying the type of queries that more frequently result in unbiased service.

Social reference: Toward a unifying theory

“…Some authors argue that librarians' interactions with users are comparable to the doctor-patient relationship (e.g., White, 1985), while others advocate the use of counseling techniques (as discussed in Radford, 1999). This approach to the reference encounter has driven the formulation and publication of professional guidelines for librarians (e.g., Ross, Nilsen, & Dewdney, 2002;Reference and User Services Association [RUSA], 2004); these guidelines are then used for the evaluation of reference transactions (Kwon, 2006;Shachaf & Horowitz, 2006Walter & Mediavilla, 2005;Ward, 2003;Zhuo, Love, Norwood, & Massia, 2006). In social reference, task processes would be valuable predictors of the outputs as much as they have been for the library reference outputs.…”

Virtual reference service evaluation: Adherence to RUSA behavioral guidelines and IFLA digital reference guidelines

“…Kwon (2007), for example, reports different levels of question answering effectiveness by request type in collaborative virtual reference services. Finally, Shachaf and Horowitz (2006) report different levels of service quality to Arabs and African Americans compared to Caucasian users. Using the knowledge that was gained from prior research about variations in the level of service quality by request type, institution, and user name the expectations in this study are that variations in adherence to professional guidelines may be found.…”

“…Empirical studies of virtual reference transactions report variations in the level of effectiveness by question type (Kwon, 2007), by institution (Stacy-Bates, 2003), and by user name (Shachaf & Horowitz, 2006). For example, Stacy-Bates (2003) reports variations among ARL institutions in the provisions of virtual reference services.…”

“…A few evaluative studies of virtual reference services have utilized these guidelines (Kwon, 2004;Shachaf & Horowitz, 2006;Walter & Mediavilla, 2005;Ward, 2003;Zhuo, Love, Norwood, & Massia, 2006). However, these studies lack a systematic and complete treatment of the guidelines; most of them refer only to RUSA guidelines and rely only on parts of the guidelines.…”

“…As these guidelines set standards for effective virtual reference services, assessment of the level of implementation of IFLA and RUSA guidelines in practice can elucidate services' effectiveness. Yet, despite the potential value of the guidelines, studies of virtual reference effectiveness have rarely utilized them as standards for evaluation and only a few studies refer to them briefly (Kwan, 2004;Shachaf & Horowitz, 2006;Walter & Mediavilla, 2005;Ward, 2003;Zhuo, Love, Norwood, & Massia, 2006). This study addresses the lacunae of empirical evaluation of virtual reference services in light of the standards by using the guidelines to evaluate virtual reference transactions.…”