Virtual Reference Survey –COMMENTS

Reference Coordinators’ Committee

Prepared by Jana Reeg-Steidinger and Paul Moriarty

January 2005

(Comment summaries appear in bolded text)

 

Virtual Reference Experiences [Question 1A2] –Librarians expressed dissatisfaction with AskWI regarding consortial management issues, end-user confusion, technical problems, public vs academic libraries’ differing expectations. UW-Madison and UW-Parkside are enthusiastic about their solo virtual reference.

 

Starting January 2005 we will return to our own version of virtual reference [telephone and email].  We found that the QuestionPoint service did not meet our standards nor serve our local student needs.   

 

We had some software problems.  A larger problem, with the co-operative service [Ask Wisconsin] that we used was patron expectations that we be able to answer institution specific questions, some of which were not library related.  Another problem that we experienced was lack of librarian availability during evenings and weekends so responsibility for the service seemed to fall disproportionately on a handful of librarians. 

 

[Question Point] Product was clunky but manageable from a technical standpoint.  Would greatly benefit from shared browsing.  The main problem was lack of use.  Staffing issues were starting to be a concern.

Mark Beatty reported 1448 questions over a 9 month period, divide that by 22 institutions and you have 7.3 questions per institution, per month, less than 2 per week.

 

We are participating in the AskWisconsin consortium using OCLC’s QuestionPoint. There have been some technical issues, such as slow response time and hang-ups. It can be especially frustrating when more than one chat patron comes on at once. There have been scheduling difficulties, especially when an academic calendar has a break and there is a desire to swap shifts with another library that is not on break. There have been concerns about responses from libraries that do not have access to the same resources, but we’ve been using the very basic QuestionPoint which does not have functionalities such as page pushing and co-browsing.

 

The extreme low use did not justify staffing the WILS QP project. The questions we did receive were primarily from public libraries.  Scheduling was a hassle. The only advantage to us was becoming acquainted with a virtual reference product.

 

When we initially began offering the [Ask Wisconsin] service, I was optimistic that it was something our users would tap into. Over time my optimism was tempered by a lack of response by our campus community in particular, and the larger community in general. Users seem to be more comfortable submitting an email, using the telephone, or visiting us in person. Despite having a handful of what I consider to be successful reference transactions via virtual reference, they just have not happened often enough for me to advocate offering this service in the future. Many of the transactions I have been involved in have met with technical difficulties and had to be followed up on via email. Also, a large percentage of transactions involved patrons who assumed they were working with a librarian at their local library, and although we can make referrals and often steer them in the proper direction, they would be much better served in getting assistance from a librarian that is an expert in the environment in which the patron is working.

The product we have been using is in my opinion not very reliable, and a bit limiting in terms of what we can do. I had been hoping that the knowledge base would be firmly in place by now, and that we would have the ability to co-browse. I think a cost / benefit analysis would reveal quite clearly that the money would be better spent on other services that our patrons currently use and on the resources they need to succeed academically.

Technical glitches are frustrating and we don’t always know when they are happening for the end-user.  Since traffic is so low, staff doesn’t feel that they are always as proficient as they would like to be.  The cooperative group in which we participate is loosely structured and I wish we had all been on the same page and agreed before we started about how to run the service and do things.  It is frustrating when colleagues at other participating institutions either really don’t want to be bothered to help a patron, or at the other extreme, don’t trust others and feel the need to check up on every single transaction.  More importantly, our users don’t seem particularly interested in using this method.  And for many/most interactions, this is NOT the most effective method of helping our users.  Quick questions can be dealt with more effectively over the phone; for in-depth things, we either have to get back to them later via e-mail or have them come in for a face to face meeting. 

I would echo the comments that users are extremely confused when in a situation where they are dealing with a librarian from a different institution.  Communication is difficult enough in this environment without adding that complication.  It creates barriers to easily understanding and working with users efficiently.  Not being able to access all the resources of their home library, and not being familiar with the faculty and the curriculum result in less than ideal service in an environment where we are playing a teaching role in addition to being information providers.  Although the ideal situation would be to handle just users from one’s home institution, there is no way my library has the resources in terms of staff and funding to offer such a service solo.

I think this might be a service whose time has not yet come considering the lack of usage.  Certainly the amount of usage as well as the lack of flexibility for our needs result in a situation where the costs in both dollars and staff time far outweigh the benefits in our perspective. 

Service is uneven, have received comments from students about poor experiences chatting with AskWI/ service is underused

We provide staffing for the service typically 4 hours per week.  The group we participate in offers chat coverage 60 hours per week.  From June through the end of November 2004 our staff handled approximately 50 chat sessions; the majority were for patrons of other libraries.  Chat sessions with approximately 37 of our users were handled by other libraries in the cooperative.

 

We have been a participant in the AskWisconsin Consortium using QuestionPoint. It has been a very mixed bag. Our primary clientele, students at our campus, are infrequent users of the service. There are many more questions from students at larger UWs participating in the consortium (UW-Milwaukee and UW-Oshkosh, for example). In some cases we are able to help these students, in part because we already “speak their language” (i.e., we understand their research needs, especially undergrads, and also have some familiarity with the system-funded databases available at their campus). There are many times, however, when the student has a need that can only be addressed by the library, or other department, on that campus. The effect of this is that the user, who expects an answer and who often assumes that the librarian is based at the local campus, is simply referred to another contact. Very frustrating for both parties.

Questions from non-students can be even more frustrating. It is often hard to carry out a thorough reference interview to find out who the user is, what type of information they are looking for, etc. The “rapid fire” nature of chat seems to create an expectation on the part of the user that the librarian is a “human Google” who will be able to reply immediately with the right answer. Any back and forth dialogue in order to get at the core of the information need is often met with impatience.

Regarding the product, we have been pleased with the latest version of QP. OCLC seems to have listened to the input about the older version and has made it easier to monitor chat sessions and interact with users on the same screen. A major feature that QP lacks, and that we feel would be very useful, is co-browsing capability.

 

I think our experience has been fine. We use QuestionPoint. We haven’t done a big publicity push due to the uncertainty of the consortium and the fact that it was a pilot project. I think the software could be better – more like Docutek’s virtual reference product, with co-browsing, etc. I think QuestionPoint is a fine, basic tool that only had occasional odd problems. While virtual reference is not highly used, I believe the usage we see is typical. Our librarians like staffing the service.

 

Interesting to see how much could be done at a distance.  Some encounters were very successful, others were frustrating.  In the beginning, the slow response times resulted in dropped sessions.  The response time did improve as the year went on.  We did help with referrals to resources on another library’s web site, or sent contact information.  Often the patron would have been better served by their local reference service.

 

The AskWi product (QuestionPoint) works fine although the new, revised interface out this fall is NOT an improvement in design or ease-of-use.  The new “referred” feature is about the only improvement.  It doesn’t offer co-browsing but I no longer think that is important.  Service from WiLS is spotty and quality of user-service from member libraries is also very hit or miss.  Our users consistently get poorer responses from the public and tech library members than from the other academics.

 

We participate in the Ask Wisconsin Librarians consortia – our first “chat” experience of any length so although I gave it a 3.5 on the A1.Chart I don’t have anything to compare it to.

 

The UW-Madison has had a good to very good experience in providing a virtual reference service.  Approximately 40 librarians from 8 or 9 libraries (out of 40 library or so on the UW-Madison campus) staff this service approximately 70 hours/week.  We use Convey’s OnDemand software currently.  We are just starting to investigate whether we should continue with Convey or switch to a different application.  This service is no longer seen by librarians or library administrators as a ‘pilot’ service but is now considered a core service that will continue indefinitely.

 

Our virtual reference chat is local only --it is primarily used to answer questions from UW-Parkside students, staff, and faculty (usually students) about local issues and

assignments. This has enabled our staff to appear knowledgeable to the patrons --

and helped us build confidence in the service.  In the past year, community use has grown. In the last 3 years, we have progressed from free HumanClick to paid HumanClick -- and have now installed Docutek's VRLplus. We are practicing using it now. We are still using HumanClick until this new program is ready

 

 

Chat Session Staffing [Question 1A4] – Generally independent from Reference Desk staffing.

 

Staff scheduled “office hours” to staff the chat session in staff offices when not on the desk typically. Although on Sunday night shifts, the few we work, the librarian on the desk does the chat duty.

 

Sessions were staffed by reference librarians working from their offices for the most part.

 

We generally staff the service from our individual staff offices.  On a few rare occasions we have done it from home when the library is closed.  Our director has a fairly firm policy of not allowing us to work from at home (and be in pay status).  The ability and willingness of my staff to offer this service is hampered by not being able to do it from at home, particularly when asked to do it at times outside of their normal work schedule, or when needing to fill in on short notice for someone else.   This is particularly problematic when asked to provide service, for example, on Sunday evening of Memorial Day weekend, etc., when the library is not normally open.

 

We decided early on that it was an exercise in frustration to try to monitor chat at the reference desk. Invariably a chat user would pop up on the screen just as we had started to help someone at the desk. Instead, our staff has been monitoring chat in their offices.

 

Strictly off the Reference Desk, from librarians’ offices and we do not involve non-reference librarians to help with coverage

 

Librarians and 2d semester library school graduate students staff the chat room from their individual office/work area, away from the reference desk.  We schedule this each week along with the hourly reference desk schedules, and have set up a similar staff rotation to ensure most questions answered by us (regardless of user affiliation) and all questions asked our local users (regardless of librarian affiliation) gets reviewed for completeness and accuracy.

 

We have figured out a way to keep the chat active all day and most of the evening. We learned very early that the person working the Reference Desk could not handle all of the

questions coming in by chat, so we got permission to put HumanClick on all of the reference librarians' office computers. (We are doing the same with our upgrade to Docutek’s  VRLplus.) Whoever is free when the "bell rings", answers. Sometimes more than one of us does -- but the program notifies one of us that someone else is already on the line, so there is no confusion.

Sessions were staffed in a variety of situations, but most were covered by a librarian who was covering the reference (and perhaps also the circulation) desk.

 

We are being asked to consider staffing the service from the Reference Desk while providing face to face service.   We are concerned about the negative effect this will have on our customer service, because this is totally contrary to our philosophy of service. Our basic tenet is that if a person has made the effort to come and visit us in person, we give priority attention to them rather than remote users.  So faced with having to serve walk-in traffic at the same time as chat, what do we do if a chat session is simultaneous with a walk-up user?  Abandon the chat session right in the middle of it to handle walk-up patrons?  Since it takes much longer (probably at least twice as long depending on connection speeds, etc.)  to handle a chat transaction, in-person users are likely to be impatient if we are making them wait while we continue a chat session.

 

 

Sessions are staffed both in librarian offices and at reference desks.

 

Reference Desk because not enough chat to merit off-desk staffing.

 

 

Virtual Reference Feedback  [Question 1A5] –

 

Several LibQUAL participants volunteered comments on the service (informal).  Some think it is fantastic, others are less impressed.  Quality of coverage can be hit-or-miss, and expectations of what can be handled via a chat transaction vary widely.  We do get more than occasional comments along the lines of “thanks, this service is amazing” so anecdotally I think more are pleased than aren’t.

 

There is a survey that the system we use automatically informs users about, but filling it out is optional.  At this time none of our users has responded and filled out the survey, which is basically a measurement of satisfaction with this method.  We hear anecdotally from users when they have had problems with the system, generally technical problems.

 

We send an email survey (form) to service users approximately 2 years ago, we haven’t surveyed since that time.  The survey indicated that users were very pleased with the service.

 

We did NOT elicit user feedback. However, users have told us that this is a very helpful service to them

 

No, but patrons do have multiple avenues available to them to express concerns about any service.

 

Haven’t taken the time to figure out a formal feedback mechanism that is appropriate and do-able

 

 

Reasons Library Doesn’t Have Virtual Reference [Question 1B] –AskWI involved low use/high staffing. A significant number of questions were institution-specific and/or involved proprietary databases which on call chat librarians could not access. The increased use of cell phones is compatible with email service. Public libraries answer their user questions; academic libraries are committed to instruct their users in research strategies to locate their needed information.

 

--Regarding participating in a virtual reference consortium, in the summer of 2003 we analyzed all our email reference questions from 1999-2003 to see what kinds of questions we were getting and when they were coming in.  We did this in part to see if the kinds of questions we were getting in that “virtual reference” environment would be suitable in a consortial environment.  Our conclusion was that we had enough questions that were specific to our institution that could not be answered directly by an “outsider” that it would place a burden on the patron, who would probably wind up being referred to us eventually. 

--We also had a philosophical concern about providing answers to public library patrons.  Specifically, our academic library service philosophy is to use reference NOT to do the searching for and selecting information for our students, but to use reference encounters (in person, email, telephone) to teach the students how to use the indexes, databases, catalog, and other library resources to find their own answers.  Those of us who have worked in public libraries noted that providing patrons with the answers is a more common model of public library service than is the teaching them how to do it themselves model.  Since we don’t do the searching and selecting for our immediate community, we didn’t feel it was appropriate to offer a different level of service to patrons from outside.

--As to virtual reference itself, we are willing to give it a try (solo) next semester (with elibrarian).  However, we have noticed that as more students have cell phones, we are getting increasing numbers of telephone calls from students who have their computers up and running while we work through problems with them because they no longer have to rely on using one land line for both their phone service and internet access.  This makes us wonder if students and librarians might prefer the directness of talking with a person and working together over the need to conduct this sort of transaction over chat.  We’ll see, I guess.  It’s also a bit inefficient to be “tied” to one’s office waiting for a chat message to come in.  It’s more efficient to be able to have telephone reference at the reference desk.

 

The [Ask Wisconsin] sessions were too disjointed for satisfactory interactions, the users were mainly from other campuses, and the queries went from very complicated to very simple (for the local site).  The simple became complicated because of the “insertion” of typing into the mix and the extra time that took—we found the phone a much better medium because it permits real time feedback.

 

We were involved with Question Point, but are no longer due to: low user demand, lack of questions, assignment of staffing hours did not utilize librarians’ expertise

 

[Ask Wisconsin] Cost/Benefit decision.  Low usage did not warrant continuation. Also concerns that we might have to go to a service model with separate service point, double librarian staffing, desk & virtual reference.

 

[Ask Wisconsin] Lack of staff time to support and monitor the service at this time. 

           

Lack of use by students/staff on our campus.  We found our students were more likely to use our own email reference account.

 

 

UW System Virtual Reference Benefits [Question 2]: The shared staffing would provide increased service hours even when libraries are closed.  Participating libraries would be on a similar academic calendar so scheduling would be compatible. Categorically similar questions and resources would increase success. Students would interact with a librarian familiar with academic resources.

It could provide service to our students when our libraries are not open.  I believe that there may be a large extent to which we could provide equal (or better) quality service during our open hours by means of telephone (rather than Chat) reference.  This is truer now than it was a few years ago because use of cell phones and high speed internet connections has become more widespread.

 

Since, in our experience, use of this service tends to be low, consortial staffing would mean we wouldn’t have to assume the full burden of covering all service hours.

 

I think there is a value in sharing our expertise and hours of staffing. It’s hard for a library to staff virtual reference with fewer staff/libraries. If we could cooperate, that would be better.

 

All would be academic users with theoretically similar questions.

 

--It would be easier to answer only academic questions as that are what I am familiar with.

--although a possible benefit be hopefully less confusion on the part of end-users, plus a similar philosophy of staff regarding levels and kinds of assistance offered, I think there are still a lot of barriers and LOTS of cross-training needed to ensure uniform efficient service for users.  The same problems still remain—not understanding that they are dealing with a librarian who is not at their institution, staff not being able to access needed resources at the student’s home campus, etc.

--One other benefit would be the ability to provide a service schedule that more closely meets the needs of the majority of campuses, and reduce hours during break periods, etc.  Right now being forced to provide staffing during times that we are normally closed, in legal holiday status, etc, is very problematic.

 

In general terms we feel that virtual reference fills a gap that will continue to grow as more and more students and faculty use our resources remotely. It reaches our users at their point of need. Also, students are comfortable with online chat as communication tool.

Regarding a UW-only virtual reference service, we would see several benefits:

- to a great degree we all speak the same language when it comes to assisting students (most likely to be the primary users of this service) with their research.

- Cross-fertilization: we would become familiar with other libraries’ web pages, resources, and services as we use them to answer questions from other campuses.

- cost savings for group purchase/subscription

-     burden can be shared among many libraries when it comes to scheduling virtual reference shifts

 

We would never be able to offer a large number of hours for a chat reference service with the staffing that we have, and our reference librarians agree that it would not be practical to offer it from the Reference Desk, where the in-person and phone traffic is more than enough to keep us busy already. There are some concerns about the AskWisconsin consortium because of the mix of library types and the staff answering questions not always being familiar with the resources available in an academic library. These types of concerns would be addressed by a consortium of academic libraries only.

 

Could create a schedule around our academic year.  Evenness of the service.

 

Many libraries could not afford to staff this service on their own.  The UW-Madison service is basically a consortial service among many different libraries on the UW-Madison campus.  Likewise, a consortial UW System service could staff a shared service allowing the service to be available for more hours

 

Reference service would be available for remote locations, at any time of day.  The service would promote use of online communication.  Would be of value to distance learning students.  A UW-System sponsored service could concentrate on academic inquiries, less public library type of queries.

 

Better understanding of what our users are asking, and more accurate recommendations as to what resources might be accessed to answer a research question.  We get many local housekeeping questions and the public library participants are more likely to respond with a reply of “that is something you’ll need to ask your local library about” than do our other UW member libraries.  That is, with so many shared resources and similar policies, other UW s would more likely know that that CINAHL or Lexis might be available to the patron, or how to get UW System Borrowing to work.

 

We believe that this will only be beneficial if the UW-System purchases the product, and individual libraries staff and manage their own virtual reference service using this product.

 

--no benefit in my opinion.

 

I see very few benefits for this type of service.

 

Frankly, the only benefit I see is the chance to get a good consortial price on the software

 

UW System Virtual Reference-Potential Problems [Question3]: Challenges include: Institution specific issues such as questions regarding campus procedures and locations; No access to other campus’ subscription databases would limit completion of transaction; User confusion because they assumedly were chatting with their own librarian; Talking/question negotiation with the library user is easier than keying in chat.  There can be difficulty keeping virtual reference skills honed with few hours/week spent staffing Because of shared staffing.

 

Students need to know that their home library may not be answering the question.  This seemed to be the MAJOR source of confusion.  A local student asked about local policies, schedules and resources and received answers from across the state.  Most responses directed the student to their home library for the information.  This whole thing evolved into an added layer which only served to delay “point of need” service and heightened user dissatisfaction.

 

We need to find ways to make it easy for librarians at one institution to address institution-specific questions from patrons at another institution.  This may be easier among UW System libraries than among the combined group of academic and public libraries that formed the AskWisconsin consortium, but it does need to be addressed.  We also need to address the question of access at times that few, if any of our libraries are open.

 

Staffing from other members would have to be completely reliable. 

The software would have to be able to handle multiple patrons AND staff. 

Use data would have to be captured and accessible from individual campuses.

There would have to be some way to alert patrons and staff to the fact they may not be addressing someone in their own institution. 

Staff from each site would have to develop familiarity with resources at all the other consortial sites—otherwise patrons may be given responses dependent on resources which are not available to them, or responses needlessly limited to resources that would be considered a poorer choice at their home library.

 

It seems that some UW schools are both uncomfortable with other librarians answering “their” patron’s questions. Also, some seem to be simultaneously upset with the lack of “business” that comes via chat while at the same time denying that it’s possible to cover virtual reference while at the reference desk. It seems there is some distrust in the System of virtual reference. We do not generally share these concerns, although we’re still unsure that this is an absolutely necessary service.

 

Because each campus is unique, I can see that local users will not be happy if they are connected to libraries in other geographical regions, when they are seeking local resources.

Many of our email questions are campus-specific.

 

--Do not have access to all of the electronic resources that are available at other UW’s-

--equitable coverage, especially evenings and weekends; some participants unwilling to do their fair share of less desirable hours of coverage

--most questions pertain to a specific library and its collection, and are not always easily answered by another library

 

Expectations vs. reality. The end user wants a quick answer from a librarian who is familiar with the library resources of that particular campus (not to mention the courses, assignments and quirks of individual faculty members). Instead, the response is often “Sorry, I don’t know. You’ll need to contact…” It would have to be made clear that, although the user will be chatting with a librarian at a UW campus, that librarian may be on the other side of the state and, in some cases, may only be able to assist in a limited way.

 

There will remain some resources that are not available to all campuses in the group. There may be some difficulties with scheduling to be worked out, and as with any group there will need to be agreements worked out about how the service will run. A System-wide service will necessitate designating someone to coordinate the service.

 

In my opinion, providing system-wide service would open the door to poorer reference in situations when a librarian is asked questions that are specific to the questioner’s institution. We don’t all have the same indexes and databases (although we do share many), and of course the campus cultures and climates vary, too, which could adversely affect the efficacy and value of shared virtual reference.  Also, the nature of chat reference involves a lot of typing.  Many of us would rather speak directly to the patron than conduct the always-tricky reference interview in the typed chat format.  I also understand that staffing is a problem in a consortial environment.  The UW libraries’ schedules and those of the various UW librarians are not always in sync, creating problems in meeting schedule obligations

Mutual expectations, resolve what is the definition for a successful Virtual Reference service?

 

Some questions require the librarian or person staffing the service to have some knowledge of library resources and services available on the caller’s individual campus.  Also, there might be an issue of trust… Do reference librarians on one campus trust the reference librarians on another campus to answer a question in an appropriate way… best practices can differ from campus to campus?

 

It takes considerable experience to do virtual reference well.  With just a few hours a week, our librarians didn’t really feel they were giving top notch reference service.  Smaller number of providers with more training might do better

 

Quality control/best practices agreed to and somehow enforced or at least reviewed.  Member libraries need to be in the chat room when they are scheduled to be there.   Support pages need to be in place so that each library has a minimum set group of FAQs that can be quickly located for cut & paste replies.

 

 

Best Fit Scenerio Comments [Question 4-Other]:

 

 

Enhanced email and telephone support until a need for virtual reference is apparent.

 

-- All staff members participating in this survey felt that serious consideration should be given to not having a chat reference service at all.

--I really think that if this is going to work at all it needs to be an “in house” type service where each library is serving its own patrons.

--a serious cost/benefit study needs to be done to convince most staff at our institution that this a necessary and effective service for meeting user needs.  In a time of severe budget and staffing constraints, this might not be the best use of funds.

 

A combination of A and B.  That is, purchasing consortia that would allow and or encourage UW Libraries’ experimenting with staffing consortia.  Such experimentation could be two libraries teaming up or a group of libraries teaming up.  The UW-Madison finds that our service is busiest on Monday-Wednesday… so, we could experiment with staffing consortia during ‘busy’ or peak service times.

 

 

Alternatives – Help Desk [Question 4-5]: Phone/email reference services are strongly supported as alternatives. Reasons include: ALL users have telephones especially cell phones readily at hand; use prevalent exisiting technology. Students generally “chat” for recreational purposes only. Both students and librarians are comfortable with phone/email reference services.

 

I’m not sure I understand this alternative on our campus. Our Help Desk is mainly for password problems, virus problems, and general PC help. I don’t know that I would want PC technicians answering information-seeking questions. That doesn’t seem like a good fit on this campus

 

The Computing and Media Services staffs a help desk with phone & email service in another building on campus.  They also have students working in the library to help with technical problems connected with our computer lab, printers, and scanner.  We work together, referring questions on technical access to the help desk as needed.  They, in turn, would forward obvious reference questions to us.

 

“Magic” query tracking software, which assigns a transaction number to each query and places that transaction in one of several process queues.  Too complicated (and privacy-invasive) for our purposes.

 

The main help desk for the campus is separated from the library, but the library does have “computer consultants” that help with patrons technical questions.

 

 

Alternatives – Feasibility of Help Desk/Reference Collaboration [Question 6]:  A merger of the two service points is not advantageous because each provides a distinctive service. Several campuses are presently making mutual referrals between libraries and help desk which is ideal.  Others believe not feasible due to campus climate and IT overloaded.

 

I really don’t see the need for these two distinct services to be merged.  Students needing technical support refer to the Help Desk and students needing research support visit or contact librarians.  Each support center offers unique service and solves unique problems.  I frequently have to contact the Help Desk to resolve computer malfunctions, printing problems and connection issues, but never for academic or research queries.  We tried this type of merged service for a year by having a librarian and computer consultant staff an information desk in a lab … the librarian was underutilized since the research process had already been completed in the library days before, leaving only formatting and printing questions.

 

Ability to connect to any campus computer to troubleshoot and resolve problems.

 

Feasible but probably not desirable…..      Lack of library knowledge and commitment; campus IT not willing to participate in collaborative endeavors.

 

The library does not have good rapport with the computing unit on campus. Off-hour assistance and support is particularly lacking.

 

--Their expertise is with common campus software applications like MS Office.  They have no expertise or interest in library provided databases and information, and would not feel comfortable taking on a project like this since they are also short-staffed.  When you compound that with the fact that it would be not only our campus, but users at all UW campuses that would need to be served, I feel that this is well beyond the scope of what could be successfully achieved. 

 

Quality control/best practices agreed to and somehow enforced or at least reviewed.  Member libraries need to be in the chat room when they are scheduled to be there.   Support pages need to be in place so that each library has a minimum set group of FAQs that can be quickly located for cut & paste replies.

 

Although the IT Help Desk is not officially part of the library, we enjoy good working relations with them.  However, librarians at our institution would not be the best people to answer many of the questions received by our IT Help Desk, nor would the students and technical folks who staff the Help Desk be the best people to answer library or assignment-related questions.  Therefore I would not recommend nor do I foresee a collaboration that would combine these two functions in one service.

 

Not feasible—our IT Services staff already has a full plate trying to provide technical support to our campus.

 

We do collaborate with the help desk, as noted above.  The Help Desk is in a separate building, but the library has staff representation on committee that overseas the Help Desk.  We do have students employed through the Computing and Media Services in the library to help with technical problems.

 

 

Alternatives – Other [Question 8]:  Phone/email reference service are strongly supported as alternatives. Reasons include: ALL users have telephones especially cell phones readily at hand; use prevalent exisiting technology. Students generally “chat” for recreational purposes only. Both students and librarians are comfortable with phone/email reference services.

 

YES.  I find that having a toll free telephone number serves both our off-site and distance education students 100%.  This gives students immediate access to local librarians who have the knowledge regarding our curriculum and institutional policies and procedures. This number is readily available, well advertised and extremely successful.  Since almost every student owns or uses a cell phone, this is the absolute best service a library can offer. On campus students frequently call the reference desk with project queries from campus labs or residence halls employing their cell phone. We also offer email reference service during most normal operating hours.  At most, a student would have to wait two hours before receiving a response.

 

As mentioned above, I believe that phone reference is becoming more feasible than it was a few years ago.  The portion of patrons that cannot access both the Internet and their phone at the same time continues to decrease.

 

As more students get cell phones (and relatively cheap long distance rates), they call the reference desk with their questions and can be on the computer (along with the reference librarian) at the same time.  This is almost as good as in person reference.

 

Perhaps AIM, a new staff member has had some success with it at his last job. AIM is AOL's Instant Messenger.  It has a couple of distinct advantages: 1) many students already use instant messaging, so there isn't a learning curve for them and 2) it's free, so if there are no

takers to the service, the library hasn't taken a financial hit. Our staff member said they just had it loaded at the reference desk—but with our level of activity I'm not sure we could get away with that.  He says they only got 1 or 2 questions a day, from our experience, that's quite a lot.

 

Our Toll-free phone number and shared reference email seems to be working well for us now.

 

Enhanced email—Leave email account open, during all reference hours, which almost creates a chat-like response time.  Allows for librarian to reflect-if necessary- on response and to handle walk-in library users.  By including screen captures with response is almost like “pushing pages.”   For involved questions, librarian can respond w/ own email address to continue follow-up.

 

Enhanced phone service— People have ready access to phones especially cell phones. Work with a technology that’s readily available. Low costs; equipment exists; no staff training; promote using phone-to-ear theme.  Use 1-800 phone line if possible.

 

-- E-mail and phone are effective and quick.  I would like to see the library get a toll-free number for off-campus users. 

-- Telephone, email, and library websites that are built with the end user in mind allowing them to more efficiently find information on their own.

--e-mail and phone still work the best.

 

We are considering reestablishing an 800 number. Many of our students live and/or work in Minnesota or other parts of the region outside of our local calling area.

 

People can use the phone, but we want to provide a non-long-distance alternative, particularly since we have distant learners. Our director has not wanted to pay for a toll-free line in the past. E-mail is fast but not immediate.

 

The old faithfuls – phone and email – seem to be working fine.

 

Email Reference service that is checked multiple times during each librarian’s shift at desk.  1-800 telephone service.

 

We do provide email reference and phone service.  We just don’t offer chat service.

 

We offer an 800# and check questions received via e-mail several times each hour.  Local students can use free campus software to dial in (local area codes only) to the campus network.  And we’ve been creating more online tutorials and links from D2L and expanding our library FAQs and help-pages for those who can locate answers on their own.  Reference service, just not manned reference service.

 

 

Additional Comments [Question 9]: There is merit in a CUWL consortium and further exploration is favored. AskWI benefits outweigh problems due to potential extended hours of chat services. Quality of service would improve with CUWL-only virtual reference. Email reference was slow to take-off; we should offer virtual reference a couple of years to see if use increases. Virtual reference is especially useful for online and distance education courses.

 UW libraries should learn from each other “rather than march in lock-step taking orders from higher up.”  Would participating in virtual reference consortia really improve reference service and efficiency? Thoroughly investigate all logistics and software issues before making decision instead of the build it/figure-it-out-as-you-go approach. During the AskWI experience, librarians mostly served other patrons who would have been better served by working directly with their own library staff…Chat transcripts recommended student inquire at own library. Some computer access policies ironically discourage chat on public workstations.

 

Although the UW libraries are similar in many ways, I would hesitate to recommend anything that takes away from local initiative. In my opinion, we all need to try out different ways of doing things and learn from each other, rather than march in lock-step taking orders from higher up.  I do appreciate the increased purchasing power of consortia, but I am not as convinced of the need for or advantages of having each UW campus as uniform as possible.  Some of the decisions about SFX and MetaLib have already eroded local decision making to a certain extent.  I am concerned that there is some talk about retrospectively making our catalogs more uniform.  I extend these types of concerns to shared chat or virtual reference.  The guiding principle I would apply to the question of whether or not all the UW system libraries should participate in the same virtual or chat reference service is:  would it really improve reference service and efficiency?  I am not sure we have that answer yet.  Maybe this survey will help.

 

If CUWL/system would decide to move ahead with a shared service like this, I feel that to make it work we would need a thorough investigation of both software/technical issues as well as setting up an operational model that will be fair to everyone involved as well as provide good customer service.  I do NOT advocate the build it/figure it out as you go approach where we optimistically think that it will all work out somehow, as I think this is a critical factor in the lack of success of the present group we are involved in.  Wildly different expectations and understanding of members has resulted in a lot of resentment and frustration, and being clear upfront about minimum contributions in terms of staff time, administration, training, etc. is essential.

 

We tried the QuestionPoint service for two years and never felt that our students or other campus students were served efficiently or effectively.  I studied the CHAT transactions for several high use times and generally found a circular type of dialog resulting in a statement recommending the student inquire at their local library.  Ironically our current Computer Access Policy still discourages chatting on public terminals.

 

At a time of System budget austerity, this should not be a priority due to low usage.

One colleague referred to virtual reference as a technology waiting for a use; I agree.

 

We feel that there is merit to a CUWL virtual reference consortium and would be in favor further exploration of this possibility.

 

In our experiment, most of the virtual reference service we provided was to patrons of other libraries.  Since we were not familiar with the particulars (locations, collections, services, policies) of the patron's library, many of our responses consisted first of determining where the patron was, then using that library's web site to attempt to answer the patron's question, if possible.  This seemed quite inefficient, and we often ended up suggesting to the patron that they contact the staff of their own library in order to obtain a more certain answer.  In these cases and others we would end up feeling that the patron would have been better served to have contacted their own library staff initially, rather than utilizing the Virtual Reference service

 

A CUWL-only chat reference service has already been hotly debated at our library and we have consensus that it would be greatly preferred over continued participation in the Ask Wisconsin system.  AskWi benefits do outweigh the problems and we couldn’t offer comparable hours of chat service without it as we’re not planning to staff chat from the reference desk as long as we can avoid that.  We predict quality of service would improve with a CUWL-only service and that would outweigh the need to perhaps reduce overall hours of service.

 

E-mail reference was very slow when it started and it took a while to take off. I am willing to offer virtual reference for a couple of years to see how well it takes off. Also, there are reasons other than numbers alone to offer it. We have a school media specialist minor on campus and the faculty teaching it pushes the library to offer virtual services. We also have an online MBA degree and various other online courses and thus we believe we need to offer the reference service where the students are.

 

If the QuestionPoint consortium falls apart and more UW schools drop out, we intend to continue with it and will likely utilize the partnership with 24/7 to give our patrons 24/7 access to help.