User preferences related to virtual reference services in an academic library

Mawhinney, Tara

doi:10.1016/j.acalib.2019.102094

Cited by 25 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 26 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Graduate students are more likely than faculty members to be of the generation whose first preference for research help is online, but they have more in-depth and detailed research needs than undergraduates. The "personalness" of chat, as discussed by Mawhinney (2020), may play a role here, as graduate students may feel that they have a relationship with their home library. They may be put off by the idea that they are not in fact interacting with someone from their library who is familiar with their needs or who can provide tailored research assistance.…”

Section: Research Question #1mentioning

confidence: 99%

Pay (No) Attention to the Man Behind the Curtain: The Effects of Revealing Institutional Affiliation in a Consortial Chat Service

Barrett

Pagotto

2022

Partnership

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This study aims to understand how users within a library consortium perceive chat service provided by staff members who are unaffiliated with the user’s home library. The researchers examined 293 chat interactions from Ask a Librarian, a consortial virtual reference service provided to university libraries across Ontario, Canada. Chi-square tests of independence were performed to explore the relationship between user dissatisfaction and instances where the chat operator revealed a mismatch in institutional affiliation between the operator and the user. Moderating variables in the relationship were investigated, including user type, question type, and operator behaviors like transferring the chat, making a referral, revealing a lack of expertise, and saying no to the patron. The researchers found that when an operator revealed that they work at a different institution than the user, patrons are more likely to be dissatisfied if they are graduate students, if their question is research-related, if the operator does not offer to transfer the chat, and if the operator does not state that they lack expertise on the chat topic. These findings suggest that chat operators should be mindful of context and relationships when revealing information about their affiliation. Users may perceive operators from other institutions as lacking knowledge about their local library, or they may be confused or alienated when receiving “behind the scenes” information about staffing that they perceive as unnecessary. The researchers recommend emphasizing and strengthening the user’s relationship with their home library and local library staff.

show abstract

Section: Research Question #1mentioning

confidence: 99%

Pay (No) Attention to the Man Behind the Curtain: The Effects of Revealing Institutional Affiliation in a Consortial Chat Service

Barrett

Pagotto

2022

Partnership

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Students preferred chat services because they perceived virtual reference services via email to be too slow. However, when using email, students indicated a preference for contacting a personal email account, like that of a liaison librarian, over a generic email address (Mawhinney, 2020). Faculty also preferred contact with liaison librarians assigned to their subject area (Shoham & Klain-Gabbay, 2019, as cited in Mahwinney, 2020).…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

From Bricks and Mortar to Bits and Bytes: Examining the Changing State of Reference Services at the University of Toronto Libraries During COVID-19

Gerbig

Holmes

et al. 2021

Partnership

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Before the pandemic, the University of Toronto was predominantly an in-person experience. The closure of physical libraries and shift to remote learning required library staff and users to adapt to new modes of supporting teaching, learning, and research. A survey was conducted about reference service delivery, staffing models, resources and tools, which asked the respondents to describe reference services at their libraries before and during the pandemic. The objectives of this survey were to capture the state of reference services at the University of Toronto Libraries (UTL), and to compare data about reference practices during the pre-pandemic and pandemic periods with the goal of identifying challenges and opportunities for the future of reference services at UTL. 70% of libraries surveyed used reference desks for reference services pre-pandemic, and during the pandemic, 75% of libraries used virtual reference appointments by video conferencing. The survey results show that reference service staffing and service hours in most surveyed libraries were reduced during the pandemic. Many respondents reported that while they offered fewer reference service hours during the pandemic, they continued to provide assistance outside of scheduled hours. Online tools and platforms that were already familiar to librarians remained popular during the pandemic, allowing service providers to quickly adapt to the virtual environment and ensure seamless service continuity. While the rapid transition in services at the University of Toronto was not without its challenges, it has also offered many new opportunities for re-envisioning reference services at the University of Toronto Libraries.

show abstract

“…Such conversational language in the digital arena can be crucial to making the interaction feel more relational as opposed to transactional (Pyburn, 2019; Dempsey, 2016). The “personalness” of chat interactions (such as engaged conversation) rated highly for users in a study at McGill University Libraries, too, especially for distance education students (Mawhinney, 2020). Utah State University Libraries discovered that, with chat, when body language and other contextual cues are missing, it becomes critical to promote approachability and friendliness via choice of words (Eastman et al.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Launching chat service during the pandemic: inaugurating a new public service under emergency conditions

Decker

Chapman

2021

RSR

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

PurposeThis article details the implementation of a live online chat service which was suddenly necessitated by the worldwide coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. The approaches used to train chat operators during this time inform both current and future training initiatives toward continuous improvement in this academic library setting.Design/methodology/approachChat transcripts from the period of March 2020–April 2021 serve as the dataset for this study.FindingsIn bringing a live chat service online during a global pandemic, chat transcripts from this period reveal 19.3% of all chat interactions related directly to COVID-19. The transcripts also reveal the types of questions, whether reference or directional, and these, combined with staffing patterns, indicate that staff were addressing reference questions more often than librarians. In addition, 25.2% of all transactions, whether by staff or librarians, resulted in tickets or referrals to hand off the question to a subject or functional specialist. These findings help to inform targeted face-to-face refresher training for chat operators.Originality/valueWhile bringing a live chat service online is certainly not novel, the impetus behind the quick setup was. This unusual circumstance allowed for an in-depth look at the nature of chat and its training requirements and limitations due to campus stay-at-home orders. It also provided a new understanding that influenced subsequent face-to-face trainings.

show abstract

User preferences related to virtual reference services in an academic library

Cited by 25 publications

References 26 publications

Pay (No) Attention to the Man Behind the Curtain: The Effects of Revealing Institutional Affiliation in a Consortial Chat Service

Pay (No) Attention to the Man Behind the Curtain: The Effects of Revealing Institutional Affiliation in a Consortial Chat Service

From Bricks and Mortar to Bits and Bytes: Examining the Changing State of Reference Services at the University of Toronto Libraries During COVID-19

Launching chat service during the pandemic: inaugurating a new public service under emergency conditions

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About