“…The OU experimented with automated systems to provide a 24/7 service to deal with common requests from distance learners (Payne and Bradbury, 2002) and set up 'Librarians on call', a 'chat' or 'instant messaging' service, as its research findings suggested that users prefer chat to email or the phone. The value of chat services for distance learners was identified at an early stage (Hinton and McGill, 2001) and they are now commonly available in HE libraries (Radford and Connaway, 2013).…”