Transcript Virtual Reference Service: An Overview

Virtual Reference Service:
An Overview
Diana Chan
The Hong Kong University of
Science and Technology Library
2005 Library Conference: Balancing the External and Traditional
Libraries at Tamkang University, Taiwan
Online Information and Education Conference, Thailand
Library and Online Resources Technologies – 2005 Xiamen Conference
At Xiamen University, PRC
Contents
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Trends in Reference Service
Impact of the Internet
What is VRS?
Developments in VRS
Usage Studies on Real Time VRS
2
1. Trends in Reference Service
Anne Lipow- “Early signposts pointing the wrong way”
• Decreased circulation statistics
• Fewer walk-in users
• Staff can’t keep up
• Reference desk eliminated
• Outsourcing on the rise
• Reduced Reference service hours
• Search engines: automated reference librarian
• Need for large building and staff not clear
Anne Grodzins Lipow, “Thinking out loud: Who will give reference service in the
digital environment?” RQ 37(2) (Winter 1999), pp. 125-9.
3
Service Trends in ARL Libraries, 1991-2004
150%
130%
110%
% Change Since 1991
90%
70%
50%
30%
Interlibrary
Borrowing
(148%)
Participants in Group
Presentations
(82%)
Group
Presentations
Circulations
(50%)
Ratio: Initial
to Total
(27%)
Total
Students
(18%)
10%
Total
Staff
(1%)
-10%
-30%
-50%
** Total Circulation includes Initial and Renewals but excludes Reserve Circulation
Source: ARL Statistics 2003-04, Association of Research Libraries, 2005
Initial
Circulation**
(-12%)
Reference
Transactions
(-34%)
4
2. Impact of the Internet
 In 2002:
73% of college students said they use the
Internet more than the library
Only 9% said they use the library more
than the Internet for information
searching.
The Pew Internet & American Life Project. (September 15, 2002).
http://www.usdla.org/html/journal/OCT02_Issue/article03.html
(accessed September 8, 2005)
5
INTERNET USAGE STATISTICS
– The Big Picture
Internet Usage Statistics, the big picture.
http://internetworldstats.com/stats.htm accessed Aug 25, 2005
6
2. Impact of Internet
 “In the digital age, the biggest change is increased
user expectations. Increasingly, user expect to be
able to find everything online, full-text.” (1998)
 “Now both reference staff and patrons believe that
an answer to almost every question can be found if
the right combination of resources and search
strategies is chosen from the multitude of Web
resources and online services accessible.” (2002)
 Carol Tenopir and Lisa Ennis
7
Impact of Internet
In 2001, Carol Tenopir surveyed 70 major American
research librarians about how their reference
services changed because of electronic resources:
 70 put email above telephone and fax as a
communication method for reference inquiries
 21 (30%) offered some form of real time VR
 70 had real time VR in planning.
Reference librarians spend more time per transaction…
“A single tally cannot capture the varying dimensions
and growing complexities of reference services”.
Kyrillidou (2000)
8
3. What is Virtual Reference
Service (VRS)?
 Internet-based Reference Service
 Asking a question online
 Live online reference service
 Virtual, digital, live, interactive, real time,
web-based, synchronous
 “Using computer and communications
technology to provide reference service to
patrons anytime and anywhere”
- OCLC’s Question Point (QP)
9
U.S. Dept of Education’s
Virtual Reference Desk Guidelines
 Accessibility
 Fast turn-around
 Clear policies
 Interactive
 Instructive
 Authority
 Privacy
 Review and evaluation
 Publicize service
IFLA Digital Reference Guidelines
"Guidelines for Implementing and Maintaining Virtual Reference
Services.“ American Library Association. 2005.
10
Pros and Cons of VRS
Pros
 Immediate assistance for
remote users
 Real time VRS is better
than email for conducting
reference interview
 Remains anonymous
 Awareness of the library
among the user
community
Cons
Additional staff
Less flexible schedule
Lack subject expertise
No visual or auditory cues
Less interactive
Typing is slow
Some logoff before you
finish answering
 Slow communications







11
Who’s Doing VRS?
1999
 150 academic libraries, 45% offered VRS
 (Janes, Carter and Memmott 1999)
 122 ARL Libraries, 96% provided VRS
 L. Goetsch (1999)
2000
 140 academic libraries, 45% offered VRS.
 Libraries with greater financial resources, larger staff,
adopted more computer-based services, higher demand
for current services
 MD White (2000)
2001
 121 ARL Libraries, 29% provided real time reference
 Tenopir and Ennis (2001)
12
4. Developments in VRS
Asynchronous digital reference
Patron submits a question and the librarian
responds at a later time
Example: Email, Web Form.
Synchronous digital reference
Patron and librarian communicate in real
time.
Example: Chat, Voice over IP, Video
Conferencing, SMS, IM.
13
More VRS Developments
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
f.
g.
h.
Email & Web Form
Reference Kiosks
Instant Messaging & Short Message Service
Video Conferencing
Voice over IP
Online Chat
Collaborative Reference Services
Commercial Services
14
Reference Options of 121 ARL
Libraries, 2001
100
100
99
100
96
90
80
70
60
50
40
29
30
20
10
0
Reference Drop In
Appointment
E-mail
Telephone
Real Time
Carol Tenopir and Lisa Ennis. “A decade of digital reference 1991-2001”
Reference & User Services Quarterly. Spring 2002, 41(3), pp. 264-273
15
a. Email and Web Form
 Describe the services offered
 Types of questions it handles, or does not
handle
 Frequency the mailbox is checked
 Response time
 Confidentiality
 Priorities
 How statistics are kept and how service is
evaluated
16
Usage Surveys on Email
Reference
 A study of 485 Qs at State University of New York
at Buffalo Libraries (1993-94)
 70% reference Qs, 30% circulation-related Qs
 90% of Qs were submitted during opening hours.
 A study at the University of Central Arkansas
 67% of Qs were by faculty, 25% by non-affiliates, 8% by
staff and none by students
 A study of 450 Qs at the California State University
Chico Library (1997-99)
 21% of Qs were answered using standard reference
resources. 15% were papers or projects, 12% factual, 11%
OPAC, 9% policies, 7% websites…
17
b. Reference Kiosks
National Library
Board, Singapore
Place Cybrarian Kiosks in the library so
that users can ask librarians wherever
they are in the library
18
c. Instant Messaging (IM)
 Brief emails exchanged very fast in real time
 Popular IM services:
 MSN Messenger
 AOL Instant Messenger
 Yahoo! Messenger
 Google Talk,
 .NET Messenger Service
 ICQ
 IM Clients supporting many protocols:
 Gaim
 Trillian
 Jabber
19
DukeRef
Temple University
20
c. Instant Messaging (IM)
 53 million adults send instant messages on a daily
basis 1
 Provides Just-in-time reference
 Less formal, low tech end
 How to Do It




Create a profile
Accept imperfection
Use abbreviations
Use online sources, load IM software on public PCs
 Best practices for IM
 Use a multi-network IM program, e.g. Trillian for Windows,
Gaim
 Send descriptive links instead of urls,
 Employ away messages
1. Sept 2004 Study “How Americans Use IM” by the Pew Internet & American Life
Project
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IM Usage Survey
SUNY Buffalo
 Offered IM reference assistance Monday-Friday
 Used AOL's free IM software -AIM and Express
 Staffed 75 hrs a week by 20 librarians + 4 library school
students
 Questionnaire results:




70% of users 18-25 of age,
69% of users on campus (25% from Cybrary)
79% satisfied with service
Type of questions







26% questions are in information literacy category
23% about using the catalog
12% are about specific library information (e.g. hours)
6% of questions are technical troubleshooting,
5% web navigation
4% electronic course reserves
4% finding SUNY Buffalo information.
 Many librarians did not receive a single question in their 1 hour
shift.
22
c. Short Message Service (SMS)
A service available on most digital
mobile phones
Permits people to send short messages
between
Mobile phones
Other handheld devices
Landline telephones
23
Curtin University’s SMS
24
Curtin University’s SMS
Users
Curtin students and staff with a text-enabled mobile phone
Scope
1 SMS equals 160 characters
Cost
25 cents (Aus$) per message to Curtin Library service
(standard rate for SMS sent to anyone)
Report on findings:
 200+ queries in 6 months
 87% received during library opening hours
 71% were explanatory type of reference questions
 Patron feedback:
 Easy to use (4.2 out of 5)
 100% of clients did not have any problems
 92% claimed they would use it again.
25
d. Video Conferencing
UC Irvine Science Library (1997):
 Provided the service to medical students who are
working in a computer lab, one hour a day, mostly on
Medline searching
 Apple VideoPhone Kit (software, camera, microphone,
color conferencing capability, Internet, Timbuktu
Program)
 Audio, video, chat window, whiteboard
 Students’ comments :
 Excited about this high-tech
 Wanted document delivery of full-text articles
26
27
Video Conferencing Software
A combination of chat software, audio and video
applications
2 kinds of software
 Software for writing classes
 Software for businesses to hold conferences
Examples:







Daedalus
GroupWise
Web Publisher
Norton Connect Net
Microsoft NetShow
Microsoft NetMeeting
Reilly WebBoard
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Microsoft NetMeeting
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e. Voice over IP
Since 2003 IM services have voice components
 MSN Messenger, AOL IM, Yahoo Messenger
Provides free or low-cost talk on internet
Negative - call other Internet users using
the same software program
Positive - make calls to land and cellular-based
phones for a modest fee
New programs
 Skype, Google Talk
30
Skype
• Allows people to talk and IM for
free using PC-to-PC connections
• Connections require someone else
to have Skype software.
• Users are identified through
names instead of numbers
• Skypers use headsets and
microphones attached to the
computers
• Soon to offer video and other
communication services
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Google Talk
32
f. Online Chat
Web contact center software and web collaboration
software:






Page pushing
Co-browsing
Escorting to various sites
Question queuing and routing
Transcripts of each session
An archive of Q&As
33
Chat Service Agents and Vendors
Multiple online agents
Cisco
Lucent
eGain
Netagent
LivePerson
HumanClick
WebAgent
Webline
Software vendors
24/7 Reference
DOCUTEK
Information
Systems Inc.
Questionpoint
LivePerson
LSSI Library
Systems &
Services
34
Prairie Area Library
System
Librarian Live
Thomas Ford
Memorial Library
35
Chat Debate - Pro
Reach out to patrons who
 Can’t get to the Reference desk
 Never have been reached before
Good for
 Those who need instant replies
 Clarifying a question faster
 Assisting users to learn effective ways to search
through co-browsing and escorting
Of the 107 million people in USA using the Internet, 4050 million use chat
- (NY Times 1998)
36
Chat Debate – Pro
Usage Study of New Jersey’s 24/7 Live Virtual
Reference Service 1
 53.9% of the customers have used the service
more than once
 89.9% would use the service again.
 Nov. 2002 - Oct 2003 49,503+ chat sessions
1. These data result of 7,000 pop-up surveys.
37
Chat Debate - Pro
More Usage Studies:
 Carnegie Mellon University (2001)
 74% reported receiving full information
 88% would use Reference Chat again
 University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (2001)
 90% reported the completeness of answers as very good or
excellent
 85% would use it again
 Southern Illinois University Carbondale (2001-02)
 82% said the answers were very helpful
 82% rated the service as a very good method of reference
help
38
Chat Debate - Con









Some transactions never finished
System or browser crashes
Co-browsing proprietary db is difficult
Patrons disappear
Time-consuming
Librarians must multi-task
Concerns about quality
Shady reputation
Low acceptance on the web by commercial business
 Only 12% offered a chat on websites (Benchmark
Portal 2003)
39
Chat Debate - Con
Providers stopped using chat
Vandebilt U
MIT
Los Alamos National Labs
LC’s 11 divisions using QP in June 2002
down to 3 in April 2004
40
g. Collaborative
Reference Service
Extend hours of coverage of
participants to 24/7
Cooperation and collaboration, informal
or network arrangement
41
Examples of Collaborative
Reference Service
LC/OCLC QuestionPoint (QP)
People’s Network
LSSI VRD
24/7 Reference
Convey Systems
Docutek
Calis Distributed Collaborative Virtual
Reference System (CVRS) - China
42
NCknows: the State Library of North Carolina's
Virtual Reference project staffed by librarians
from throughout N Carolina
43
Example of a Transcript of an
NCKnows Chat Session
anonymous: I mean the Silicon Valley are composed of high-tech companies. What arbout Resarch
Triangle region. Are they also high tech or just research companies as its name applies?
24/7 Librarian vw: Apart from one being in NC, on the east coast, and one being in VA, on the
west coast?
anonymous: Is there any difference between Research Triangle and the Silicon Valley in CA?
24/7 Librarian vw: Try copying and pasting the address into a new browser window
anonymous: I have this message pops up "Stack overflow at line 1"
24/7 Librarian vw: http://www.rtrp.org/
anonymous: What is the url of this page.
24/7 Librarian vw: Does this answer your question?
anonymous: [Page sent - Site Selection Consultants]
24/7 Librarian vw: Here is a website about the Research Triangle region.
24/7 Librarian vw: [Page sent - Research Triangle Region]
anonymous: Hi! I'm out of the states. Can you tell me what is the Research Triangle in NC
24/7 Librarian vw: How may I help you?
24/7 Librarian vw: Hello, welcome to our NCknows Reference Service.
[24/7 Librarian vw - A librarian has joined the session.]
A librarian will be with you shortly. Please remember that while our librarians can help you use
your library, they may not be from your specific library system or branch
44
Busy Collaborative Services
 AskUsNow in
Maryland (2,900 in
Oct 2003)
 AskNow in
Australia (3,196)
 QandA in NJ
(5,800)
 KnowItNow in
Cleveland (3,500 a
month, 4% of total
ref workload)
45
Number of Collaborative
Reference Services
In North America:
1,730 libraries in 62 collaborative
services (as of Jan 2004)
3,000 - 4,000 libraries using chat
software
46
Index of Collaborative
Reference Service
 Collaborative Live Reference Services, by Bernie
Sloan
 Index of Chat Reference Services, by Stephen
Francoeur
 500 VR Services (Feb 2004)
 LiveRef(sm): A Registry of Real-Time Digital
Reference Services, by Gerry McKiernan
 132
47
OCLC’s QP
 Started in 2002 by LC and OCLC
 Used by over 1,000 libraries in 20 countries
 Over 7,000 QandA Knowledge base
 Subscription of $2,000/yr
 Questions received - Use best-matching
routing to library profiles
 Web-based chat, co-browse and cooperative
reference tools
 A management tool for reference
transactions
 Respond, assign, refer, route
48
Example of a Question from
OCLC’s QP
49
Usage Study - QandANJ
 Statistics:





25,000 customer questions in 2002,
50,000 questions in 2003,
Nearly 60,000 questions in 2004,
During a busy hour, may handle 25-30 questions.
In the busiest month (March 2004), more than 7,400 Qs
 Pop-up customer feedback form on 8,745 customers,
Jan 2002-Oct 2003




53.9% of the respondents used more than once
89.8% of the respondents said they will use again
60% said they have their questions completely answered
80.2% were satisfied or very satisfied with the service
50
Doubts about VRS
- Steve Coffman
Joe Janes – Global Census of Digital
Reference
Less than 6 Qs a day in Nov 2003
Only 29% of ARL libraries offer VRS
(36 out of 124)
LSSI - Oct 2003 declined over Oct
2002
51
h. Commercial Service
 Search engine
 AskJeeves
 Ask yahoo
 Expert systems:
 Allexperts.com
 Google answers
 AskMeNow
 Information Please
 Know’Post
 Experts Exchange
 Inforstry
 Webhelp.com
 Questia
 Ask.yahoo.com/ask/most
 LC’s Ask a Librarian
 Virtual Reference Desk
52
Google Answer
• Beta version, Apr 2002
• 500 freelance researchers
• Costs US$0.5 to list a Q
• $2-200 for an answer
• 1 day turnaround
• User may rate the answer
• User may reject the
answer and request a full
refund
• 25% of the fee to Google
• The service provides an
FAQ, a database of Q&A.
53
AskMeNow
• A commercial VRS
• 100 answer agents
• Free for basic Qs,
• US$0.49 for AskAnything
• Beta test with 10,000 users
• Sign-up with cell phone (N.
American wireless carrier)
• Call AskMeNow phone
number with the cell phone
• Ask the Q
• Answer is text-messaged to
your cell phone within minutes
54
Cornell’s Study (2002/03)
 24 Questions from 3 sources (Maryland, Cornell and
Google)
 2 librarians and 1 assistant prepared answers and
noted the time spent
 1 librarian registered with Google Answers as a user,
submitted the questions and obtained answers
Conclusion
 Quality: Cornell reference librarians were rated
about the same as the Google researchers
 Cost: Cornell reference librarians were much more
expensive
55
Cornell Study:
Average Price by Difficulty of Question
Average Price
$45.00
$40.00
$35.00
$30.00
$25.00
$20.00
$15.00
$10.00
$5.00
$0.00
Cornell
Google
1
2
Difficulty Level
3
56
5. Usage Studies on
Real Time VRS1
When
 70-80% took place from Mon.-Thurs.
 Tuesday and Wednesday are the busiest
How
 50-70% of respondents learned about the service through
library homepage
Where
 30% of respondents were within library
 40% on campus, 30% off campus (Broughton)
Why
 Convenience and anonymity (Foley and Ruppel et.al.)
Satisfaction
 80-90% satisfied
1. Kelly Broughton’s paper summaries 7 studies
57
Quote about VRS
Digital reference matters but it will not if we:
 do it badly
 do it alone
 do it only one way
 do it in secret
 do it too slowly
 or from a position of fear
- Joe Janes
58
Quote about VRS
“Be brave, be bold, be thoughtful
and if you build it, they will come.”
- Diane Kresh, Library of Congress
59
References
1. Academic Library Statistics (2004). Association of College and Research Libraries, available at
http:www.ala.org/ala/acrlbucket/staticticssummaries/2004abcde/B17.pdf (accessed
September 1, 2005.)
2. ARL Statistics 2003-04. (2005). Association of Research Libraries, available at
http://www.arl.org/stats/arlstat/graphs/2004/pubser04.pdf (accessed August 25, 2005.)
3. Broughton. Kelly M. (2002/03) “Usage and user analysis of a real-time digital reference service.”
The Reference Librarian, No.79/80, pp. 183-200
4. Coffman, Steve. (2004) “To chat or not to chat – taking yet another look at virtual reference, Part
1. Infotoday, Vol. 12 No. 7, July/August, available at
http://www.infotoday.com/searcher/jul04/arret_coffman.shml (accessed June 17, 2004)
5. Coffman, Steve. (2004) “To chat or not to chat – taking yet another look at virtual reference, Part
2 . Infotoday, Vol. 12 No. 8, September, available at
http://www.infotoday.com/searcher/sep04/arret_coffman.shml (accessed June 17, 2004)
6. Foley, Marianne. (2002) “Instant messaging reference in an academic library: a case study” College
& Research Libraries, pp.36-45.
7. Giles, Nicola and Grey-Smith, Sue. (2005) “TXTing librarians @ Curtin” Information Online 2005,
available at http://conferences.alia.org.au/online2005/papers/a12.pdf (accessed September 2,
2005.)
8. Guidelines for Implementing and Maintaining Virtual Reference Services. (2005). American Library
Association, available at
http://www.ala.org/ala/rusa/rusaprotools/referenceguide/virtrefguidelines.htm (accessed
September 2, 2005)
9. Hyman, Karen and Brombert, Peter. (2003) "I'm just ecstatic about the whole darn thing!: Customer
feedback and lessons learned at QandA NJ, New Jersey's 24/7 Live Virtual Reference
Service.“ available at http://www.vrd2003.org/proceedings/index.cfm#Evaluation (accessed
September 10, 2005.)
60
References
10. Internet Usage statistics, the big picture. (2005) Miniwatts International, Ltd., available at
http://internetworldstats.com/stats.htm (accessed August 25, 2005.)
11. Katz, Bill. (2002/03) “Digital Reference: an overview” The Reference Librarian, No.79/80, pp.
1-17
12. Kennney, Anne R. et.al. (2003) "Google meets eBay: what academic librarians can learn from
alternative information providers" D-Lib Magazine June Vol.9 No.6 pp.1-16
13. Kresh, Diane. (2002/03) "Virtually yours: thoughts on where we have been and where we are
going with virtual reference services in libraries" The Reference Librarian No.79/80,
pp.19-34.
14. Kyrillidou, Martha. (2000) “Research Library Trends: ARL Statistics” Journal of Academic
Librarianship Vol. 26, November pp. 427-36
15. Lessick, Susan. Kjaer, Kathryn and Clancy, Steve. (1997) “Interactive Reference Service at UC
Irvine: expanding reference service beyond the reference desk” available at
http:www.ala.org/acrlbucket/nashville1997pap/lessickkjaer.htm (accessed September 2,
2005.)
16. Lipow, Ann G.(1999) “Thinking out loud: Who will give reference service in the digital
environment?” RQ Vol. 37 No.2 Winter, pp. 125-9.
17. Meola, Marc and Stormont, Sam. (1999)"Real-time reference service for the remote user"
The Reference Librarian, No. 67/78, pp.29-40
18. Moeller, Sherry E. (2003) “Ask-a-librarian: an analysis of an email reference service at a large
academic library” Internet Reference Services Quarterly Vol. 8 No.3, pp. 47-61
61
References
19. Schmidt, Aaron and Stephens, Aaron. (2005) "IM me" Library Journal April 1, pp.34-35
20. Stephens, Brad. (2004) “Is the voice over IP finally ready to be the next big thing?” Library
Administrator’s Digest. September, Vol. 39 No. 7, p. 51.
21. Stoffel, Bruce and Tucher, Toni. (2004)“Email and chat reference: assessing patron
satisfaction” Reference Services Review Vol.32 No.2, pp. 120-140
22. Tenopir, Carol. and Ennis, Lisa. (2002). “A decade of digital reference 1991-2001” Reference
& User Services Quarterly. September Vol. 41 No.3, pp. 264-273
23. White, Marilyn D (2001). “Diffusion of an innovation: digital reference service in Carnegie
Foundation Master’s Academic Institution Libraries.” The Journal of Academic Librarianship,
Vol. 27 No. 3, May, pp. 173-187
62