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Virtual high schools, school librarians who are heavily using Web 2.0 technologies and laptop schools are already faced with electronic reference questions. Although IM and chat software are currently restricted in most schools during the day, students are using online reference services provided by public libraries after school. For example, middle school students are frequent users of AskA services (Silverstein 2004) and, as more public libraries such as the Alexandrian Public Library in Mount Vernon, Indiana (Barack 2005) incorporate IM, students will begin to expect similar services of their school librarians. Therefore, ready or not, school librarians are likely to find themselves on the front line in the near future, choosing and using various ICT technologies to meet their users’ needs and expectations.
How does the reference interaction change when new technologies including e-mail, chat, and instant message become the vehicle for communication? Did an emphasis on information literacy change the nature of these reference questions? Do users consider and select among their various technology options when posing questions? Do different types of services attract different types of questions? What types of questions are received most frequently overall? Lastly, which questions take the longest to answer? To find answers to these questions, we set out to evaluate the various types of reference interactions in which we were engaged.
Study Design
The study was conducted throughout the Spring Semester, 2006 at Miami University of Ohio. To take a “snapshot” of our reference interactions for a given period, we gathered data on all reference interactions for the entire semester for one librarian. The data include a summary of each question, the “medium” used to ask it (e-mail, chat, telephone, at the reference desk, or during an office visit) and the approximate duration of each interaction. Over the course of the semester, a total of 371 questions were recorded. These questions could be classified into four main types: Directional, Service, Technical, and Research. These are defined using examples that might occur in a school library setting:
�� Directional questions ask where specific collections or resources are located. “Where is the latest People magazine?” or “Where is the photocopier?”
�� Service questions concern library services or policies. “How do I reserve a digital camera?” “What’s the procedure for getting a Web site unblocked?”
�� Technical questions specifically involve technology. “How do I add sound to a PowerPoint slide?” “Do we have Photoshop software?”
�� The last area, research, includes what we traditionally think of as information literacy questions. “Which database has the best resources for my science project?” “How do I get rid of the Dolphins team from my search results on dolphins?
Results
Our research was based on a total of 371 reference interactions over the semester. Figure 1 shows the breakdown of these questions by both media type (e-mail, chat, telephone, face-to-face at the reference desk, and during an office visit) and also by the four types of questions outlined above (service, technical, research, or directional). This graphical representation of the findings is an indicator of which question types were asked through the various media. For example, out of 371 total questions, 230 or 62% were still asked at the reference desk. The next most popular question “media” was chat, with 63 questions, followed by e-mail and telephone with 30 and 29 questions respectively, and last was office visits, with 19.
The sheer number of questions asked at the reference desk compared to the other media shows that the majority of our reference interactions are still face-to-face in a specific location. For the school librarian in a one-person operation, personal interaction will continue to dominate during the school day as long as students come into their facility.
Also included in Figure 1 is information on the types of questions asked in each format. For example, of the 230 reference desk questions, over 74% were classified as research questions. Due to the type of service we provide [unclear], research questions made up a substantial portion of the questions asked in each media type, although there was some variation. Technical questions made up 18% of the chat traffic, although they were the least common category (8%) overall. Technology-savvy students are more likely to use chat than e-mail, for example, so chat seems a logical medium for technical questions. Figure 1 reinforces our original premise that different types of questions are asked in different channels.
Figure 1
We also examined the duration of each patron interaction and compared the mean duration of interactions across both the types of questions asked and the methods used to ask the questions. For example, the mean time to answer a question raised during an office visit was over 20 minutes compared to seven minutes for a chat question (Figure 2). School librarians might want to consider identifying questions that can be answered through technology more efficiently than in face-to-face interaction. Carolyn Karis, a teacher-librarian in a laptop high school, mounts short instructional videos called “Show Me How” http://inside.urbanschool.org/library/index_show.html for certain recurring question. Then when she’s e-mailed or IM’d with one of these questions, she sends the link to the teacher or student. This is especially important because we found that research questions take amost three times as long as other questions, on average approximately 14 minutes to answer, as compared to 4.8 minutes for service questions, 3.9 minutes for technical questions and 2.6 minutes for directional questions (Figure 3). Therefore, by identifying and dealing more systematically with “generic” research questions or questions about policies, the school librarian may be able to increase time spent on more knotty problems which require individualized help either face-to-face or online.
Figure 2
Figure 3
Implications
Turning to the question, “how can we use this information to improve the services we offer?” a few simple recommendations come to mind. For example, in the academic library setting the majority of the technical questions occurred during chat sessions, so the school librarian might want to open a discussion with the technology coordinator or, in some schools, the student tech team about monitoring the chat service.
Looking deeper, what do these results have to say about the future of libraries and librarians? Between the reference desk and office visits, over two-thirds of the questions were asked in-person versus one-third that came through the chat service, e-mail, or telephone. Should we focus our attention on the medium that currently generates the majority of our questions (in-person reference service) or promote chat and other online services more heavily in an effort to increase efficiency and responsiveness? If one service is used much more heavily than others, does that mean that more attention should be paid to it or that we should focus on why a service is underutilized?
Either strategy has staffing implications. While few libraries ever feel that they are well-staffed, this is a critical issue in school libraries where there is often a single professional. Any new service is a trade-off with time spent elsewhere and, since students expect 24/7 access, how can online or in-person reference services in schools be staffed when students are most likely to use them? Some schools are investigating state-sponsored services such as homework help through public library consortiums. Another is the creation and promotion of a knowledge-base or online FAQ which assists users in locating their own answers to queries.
The July 2005 Pew “Internet & American Life Project” found that 75% of teens are using instant message (Lenhart, Madden, and Hitlin 2005). School librarians are recognizing that their visibility as a “contact” in IM, rather than e-mail or even chat, is a good way to meet their users at their point of need using a low-cost technology that students are already wildly enthusiastic about. It’s a good service call.
Conclusions – What can we learn from each other
This snapshot of one semester of reference interactions at an academic library provides data for discussions of staffing and training, as well as for the development of new reference services. By knowing the types of questions and the length of time needed on average to answer them, we can provide training and deploy staff time more effectively.
Looking at the broader picture, this research can also give us some insight into the continuing debate about patrons’ declining use of library reference services overall. The librarian who looks at the half-empty glass worries about what he or she needs to do, including increasing the visibility of online help services, improving their usability, and increasing staff hours or personnel. The school librarian who looks at the glass half-full focuses on successes; providing instruction, improving the Library’s Web site services, and purchasing full-text databases to meet curricular needs. Under the right conditions, these encourage independent, self-directed learning. Then, as students are able to find the “easy answers” to questions such as “How can I reserve the digital camera?” or “How do I pronounce this word?” themselves, they have access to more in-depth help on difficult research questions. Students are still coming to the library, still asking questions, and still benefiting from our services but we all need to get clearer about providing the right services for the right purpose.
Works Cited
Lenhart, Amanda, Mary Madden, and Paul Hitlin. 2005. “Teens and Technology: Youth are leading the transition to a fully wired and mobile nation”. Pew Internet & American Life Project, <http://www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/PIP_Teens_Tech_July2005web.pdf>, Accessed July 17, 2006.
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