Contrastación de resultados con otros estudios similares

Can’t chat right now, can I get back to you later?

The fact that the librarians were already busy with other users probably kept them from conducting a more thorough reference interview for these transactions. A full reference interview could have helped librarians answer the users’ questions more

quickly, by clarifying exactly what information was needed. For some of the questions, it may even have been possible for the librarian to provide an answer right then had the librarian known more about what the user needed. If this were not possible, the librarian could have gathered enough information about the question to send the user a useful response when the librarian did have time, or realize that the question should be referred to another librarian for an email response.

Many of the reference interviews for the chat transactions studied could not be completed because the user logged off or disappeared before the librarian could finish the interview, or because the librarian began the reference interview by giving the user the opportunity to submit the question and any backup information so that an answer could be sent later, once the librarian had more time. In other cases, the librarian referred the user to other librarians or to individuals outside of the NCknows network before doing a reference interview, and this prevented the librarian from conducting a reference

Hello, is anybody there?

There are many possible reasons for the high rate of disappearance by users. The Netscape 7.x and Mozilla 5.x browsers do not work with the 24/7 Reference software used by the NCknows service. According to one librarian (personal communications, March 15, 2005), the users “will connect – but then they will get our messages and we won’t get theirs.” This understandably leads the librarians to log off after sending several messages to users who, as far as they can tell, are not responding. Many of the

transactions that had to be coded as the user disappearing in the middle of the session could potentially be attributed to the user’s browser not working with the NCknows interface.

The only time that the [user – has disconnected] message appears is when the user clicks on the ‘end call’ button. Users may have accidentally disconnected themselves from the service by clicking on the ‘end call’ button instead of the ‘send’ button, since they are close to each other and they are the same sizes. Conversely, users may have decided that the chat was over, but did not remember or know to end the session by clicking on the ‘end call’ button. Without a message appearing in the transcript stating that the user had disconnected, it could not be assumed that the user had logged off.

Users often expressed confusion as to whether a librarian was actually on the other side, receiving questions and providing answers. Some users may have given up on the librarian prematurely, simply because they were not sure that there was anyone on the other side looking at their questions. In one transaction, after the user submitted the question, the librarian replied that they were experiencing a busy time, and asked if the

user would like an answer emailed later. The user submitted three replies without hearing from the librarian again, before disappearing from the service:

User: “Yesterday I hear the same thing and I asked for an email response and did not receive any feedback.”

User: “How long do you think this will take?” User: “Is anybody home?”

The phrasing of many of the users’ questions suggests that they assumed that they were chatting with a librarian at their local library. Examples of this include requests such as “Do you have “The Virgin’s Suicide” available to read?”, “Do you keep consumer reports magazine for reference?”, and “When is the Wake County Library Book Sale?” One user disconnected after learning that the librarian answering her questions was not a local librarian:

User: I need help on find topics on this essay please.

Librarian: Are you a college student? If so, your school library may have guides, reference works, and databases online. What school do you attend?

User: Sorry I thought this is our school e-library. Librarian: What subject are you researching? [User - has disconnected]

Several transactions showed a heightened sense of urgency coming from the user. One user entered “HELP ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!! with tutor.com.”1 Another user submitted a question, written in lower case, but disconnected before receiving help from the librarian. The user then submitted the question again three minutes later, although the request was

written entirely in caps the second time. The librarian asked the user to either wait or try later, and the user disconnected again.

The two main reasons for not completing a reference interview resulted from the librarians not having enough time to answer each user’s question as soon as it is asked. In order to prevent this from happening, more North Carolina librarians should be brought onto the service to answer questions submitted to the service, especially since North Carolina librarians currently staff the service only sixty hours a week. During the remaining 108 hours, librarians working with 24/7 Reference are answering users’ questions. Ward’s finding that conducting a complete reference interview actually shortens the average lengths of chat transactions suggests that librarians should make it a priority to conduct as complete a reference interview as soon as possible with each user. This would not only increase the likelihood that users would actually receive the

information that they need, as it is often difficult to determine what information is truly needed, based simply on a short email message sent from an anonymous user, but it may also speed up the completion times for chat transactions and thereby reduce the amount of time that users must wait for assistance. This could also reduce the number of users who either log off or disconnect from the service before getting a chance to talk with a librarian. A properly conducted, complete reference interview can insure that users receive the information they need in a timely manner, and will reduce the number of incomplete transactions.

More librarians working online at the same time would also reduce the number of times that librarians end a session because they want to do more research or consult other sources before sending answers to users. Librarians would feel less pressure to answer

questions quickly simply because they know that other users are waiting or will be submitting questions. Having more librarians working online at a time would also reduce the number of questions that need to be referred to other librarians or libraries within the NCknows service, since there would be a greater chance that another librarian would be able to assist the responding librarian for complex, subject-specific questions. It is even possible that a librarian from the user’s home library could be online answering questions and would be able to answer any questions that the user might have that were library- specific and would have been referred. Adding enough librarians to counteract the long waits that users experience during busy periods may be a prohibitively expensive

proposition, unfortunately. It may be less expensive for NCknows to use North Carolina librarians instead of outsourcing service hours to 24/7 Reference, though, so it may be possible to reduce these costs somewhat.