Local Users, Consortial Providers: Seeking Points of Dissatisfaction with a Collaborative Virtual Reference Service

Abstract

Abstract
 Objective – Researchers at an academic library consortium examined whether the service model, staffing choices, and policies of its chat reference service were associated with user dissatisfaction, aiming to identify areas where the collaboration is successful and areas which could be improved.
 Methods – The researchers examined transcripts, metadata, and survey results from 473 chat interactions originating from 13 universities between June and December 2016. Transcripts were coded for user, operator, and question type; mismatches between the chat operator and user’s institutions, and reveals of such a mismatch; how busy the shift was; proximity to the end of a shift or service closure; and reveals of such aspects of scheduling. Chi-square tests and a binary logistic regression were performed to compare variables to user dissatisfaction.
 Results – There were no significant relationships between user dissatisfaction and user type, question type, institutional mismatch, busy shifts, chats initiated near the end of a shift or service closure time, or reveals about aspects of scheduling. However, revealing an institutional mismatch was correlated with user dissatisfaction. Operator type was also a significant variable; users expressed less dissatisfaction with graduate student staff hired by the consortium.
 Conclusions – The study largely reaffirmed the consortium’s service model, staffing practices, and policies. Users are not dissatisfied with the service received from chat operators at partner institutions, or by service provided by non-librarians. Current policies for scheduling, handling shift changes, and service closure are appropriate, but best practices related to disclosing institutional mismatches may need to be changed. This exercise demonstrates that institutions can trust the consortium with their local users’ needs, and underscores the need for periodic service review.

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

“…a student or library staff member seeking assistance from a librarian) prior to returning to the user with an answer, demonstrating a collaborative approach to chat (Smith et al , 2016). In some more uncommon instances, such as library consortia, chat operators from outside the library respond to users' questions effectively, too; chat transcripts reviewed in this study indicated that users were only dissatisfied with the service they received after the chat operator revealed that they were from outside the library–not necessarily from the quality of the help they received (Barrett and Pagotto, 2019). And, with consortia, the chat service needs to be assessed from the perspective of all member libraries (Barrett and Greenberg, 2018).…”

“…Service quality is often a primary concern with chat reference (Barrett and Pagotto, 2019). Determining a plan for training chat operators (whether operators are librarians, library staff, or students) and scheduling chat services – towards a goal of providing consistent service – often proves difficult (Shepherd and Korber, 2014; Yang and Dalal, 2015).…”

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

“…The local librarians received higher satisfaction scores than external librarians overall, but the satisfaction scores of external librarians rose over time in certain categories, indicating that non-local librarians' performance improves as familiarity with other library locations grows. Barrett and Pagotto (2019) also compared chat service provided by "home" staff and operators from partner libraries in the area, but their research concerned user dissatisfaction. They found no significant difference in user dissatisfaction when patrons are served by local chat operators compared to partner chat operators.…”

Infrastructural Overview of College Libraries towards Implementation of Virtual Reference Service (VRS): A Study of North-Western India

“…In their article, Mawhinney & Kochkina (2019) presented the results of a study on virtual reference service, where they seek to determine whether or not the texting service is filling a different information need than chat and email by examining the level of difficulty and the topic of questions using these different methods of communication. Barrett & Pagotto (2019) examined whether the service model, staffing choices, and policies of its chat reference service were associated with user dissatisfaction, aiming to identify areas where the collaboration is successful and areas which could be improved. In their article chapter Cleveland & Philbrick (2018) provide an overview of virtual reference services, discuss key issues related to the provision of virtual reference services, review the literature on virtual reference services in academic health sciences libraries, and present a study on the trends in virtual reference services in academic health sciences libraries.…”