Download - Chat Reference Consortium vs. Stand-alone Katherine Holvoet ULA/MPLA Annual Conference 2008
Chat ReferenceConsortium vs. Stand-alone
Katherine Holvoet
ULA/MPLA Annual Conference
2008
Common Chat Reference Service Models
• Stand-alone– Local staffing– Local tech support– May involve “branch” libraries
• Consortium– Centralized staffing (multi-
institution, state, national)– Centralized tech support
Issues common to both service models
• Librarians can’t staff a physical and virtual reference desk at the same time
• Librarians can multi-task while staffing chat reference
• Issues with the medium– Pressure to answer quickly and
completely– Lack of nonverbal cues with patrons– Difficulties with shift changes
Further issues
• Relatively low volume of questions per hour
• Cost effectiveness• Nature of questions
– “An evaluation of chat sessions revealed that a substantial portion of inquiries received related to university-specific interests.” from Virtual Reference Services: Consortium versus Stand-Alone
Stand-Alone chat service
• Local staffing benefits– Produces higher patron
satisfaction for local-expertise required questions
– Fast response time to local questions (which constitute more than 1 in 5 queries)
– Local control of training enables more uniform level of response
– May be less expensive overall
• Local staffing down side– Many more hours dedicated to
service than consortium members while still not providing 24/7 coverage
– May not be less expensive overall, depending on software choice and total staffing costs
– Free software has downsides
Consortium Chat
• Consortium chat benefits– Extensive coverage (often 24/7
365) – Overall higher reference volume– Centralized scheduling and
troubleshooting
• Consortium chat downsides– More expensive– 23% of questions require local
expertise and 60% of questions require some institutional knowledge of resources, etc.
– Training needs are greater due to many more members
– Librarian dissatisfaction
Reasons chat reference services are discontinued
• “The major reason for discontinuation was funding problems, followed by low volume (including low volume by target audience). Other reasons were staffing problems, technical problems, and institutional culture issues.” from A multiple-case study investigation of the discontinuation of nine chat reference services
Anecdotal Evidence
• Off-Campus Library Services Conference– 3 libraries either switched from
consortium to stand-alone services or ran both simultaneously
– All three reported much higher satisfaction with stand-alone chat reference service from patrons and librarians, even with far fewer service hours
Resources used in this presentation
• Bishop, Bradley Wade. “Virtual Reference Services: Consortium versus Stand-Alone.” College & Undergraduate Libraries 13(4) 2006: 117-127.
• Kwon, Nahyun. “Public libraries’ patrons’ use of collaborative chat reference service: The effectiveness of question answering by question type.” Library & Information Science Research 29 (2007): 70-91.
• Radford, Marie L. “A multiple-case study of the discontinuation of nine chat reference services.” Library & Information Science Research 28 (2006): 521-547.
• Akers, Cynthia. “From IM to Collaboration: Providing Virtual Reference Services at a Medium-Sized Institution.” College & Undergraduate Libraries 13(4) 2006: 75-95.