The Value of Chat Reference Services: A Pilot Study

Abstract

This article explores student, instructor, and librarian perceptions of chat reference in the context of an introductory composition course. Participants in a mixed-method study responded to an anonymized chat transcript. While student respondents valued speed and efficiency, they were willing to receive instruction and open to questions that demonstrated interest or moved the research forward. Librarian and instructor comments focused on how these chats supported or could better support student learning, as well as on the interplay between classroom teaching, library instruction, and reference. The authors also identify implications that these findings have for the development of best practices in chat reference.

Chatting Without Borders: Assessment as the First Step in Cultivating an Accessible Chat Reference Service

“…There is a body of literature about sampling virtual reference transactions in general (e.g., Cullen & Gray, 1995;Murgai, 2011), and one approach to chat analysis projects is to take a sample of chat transcripts in a given period (e.g., Jacoby, Ward, Avery & Marcyk, 2016;Valentine & Moss, 2016). Other researchers have opted to analyze transcripts from an entire academic quarter (e.g., Belanger, et al, 2016) or year (e.g., Mungin, 2017).…”

A Rapid Review of the Reporting and Characteristics of Instruments Measuring Satisfaction with Reference Service in Academic Libraries

“…Of the 29 studies we gathered, 18 (62%) were solely quantitative in design and one (3%) solely qualitative. We labeled ten (34%) studies as combining both quantitative and qualitative designs, but this was usually because we defined "mixed methods" broadly to allow open-ended questions to be called qualitative; only two studies (7%) (Jacoby, Ward, Avery, & Marcyk, 2016;Verma & Parang, 2015) were truly mixed using the more conservative approach as defined by Fidel (2008) in which qualitative and quantitative methods were used to answer the same research question. Askew (2015) and Yap and Cajes (2016) employed quantitative methods to ask students about their satisfaction with roaming reference service and qualitative methods to ask librarians about their experience with providing the service; these studies are therefore labeled "quantitative" for the purposes of this review.…”

“…Respondents were asked to consider aspects of librarian behaviour such as approachability and responsiveness, helpfulness, respect for confidentiality, and offering referrals; and aspects of librarian performance such as ability, accuracy, knowledge, and inspiring confidence. Five instruments (Blake et al, 2016;Butler & Byrd, 2016;Huang, Pu, Chen, & Chiu, 2015;Jacoby et al, 2016;Luo & Buer, 2015) asked students to gauge their likeliness to use, re-use, or recommend the service. Masrek and Gaskin reported presenting respondents with 10 items about Service quality, usefulness, and satisfaction (p. 42) but unfortunately did not provide the full text of the items within their article, making it impossible to determine how they conceptualized these elements of satisfaction.…”

“…" Yan, et al (2015) were not clear, as it seemed they gave their scale two midpoint labels, "Neutral" and "Not Familiar." Most 5-point scales had a midpoint labeled "Neutral" (Askew, 2015;Blevins, et al, 2016;Boyce, 2015;Huang et al, 2015;Mohindra & Kumar, 2015) or "Neither Agree nor Disagree" (Jacoby et al, 2016;Masrek & Gaskin, 2016). Three authors did not report the label used for their midpoint (Chen, 2016;Ganaie, 2016;Swoger & Hoffman, 2015).…”

“…Of the ten mixed methods studies (34%), two authors (7%) presented validity evidence in their reports in the form of inter-rater agreement on thematic analysis. Two sets of researchers (Jacoby, Ward, Avery, & Marcyk, 2016;Swoger & Hoffman, 2015) showed evidence of intercoder reliability, as they both discussed and reviewed their coding process; however, they did not report reliability coefficients.…”