Many patrons use chat reference as their only means of communication with the library. It is critical to provide a high level of user satisfaction and a positive user experience when providing service through this medium. Since so many units and libraries across campus participate in our Reference Services, it is important to maintain a high quality and consistent experience for our patrons.
LibAnswers provides an excellent opportunity to collaborate with your colleagues. If you are on the desk and encounter a difficult or interesting question, you are encouraged to share this information with your supervisors and our faculty librarians. This will allow you the opportunity to collaborate with your colleagues and reinforce best practices.
You are never alone during a Reference shift—support is always available. Our Librarians are staffed as backup chat during normal business hours. You can contact them directly through your LibAnswers platform by clicking their name under the “Operators” tab on the lefthand side of the screen. If one of our Librarians is unavailable, we have a contracted 24-hour backup chat service, which will claim any inquiries unclaimed by a Graduate Reference Assistant. If you have questions or concerns and would like to reach out for support via email, please contact these faculty librarians for support.
Cathy Geers, Reference Librarian: cgeers@dom.edu
Zach Claybaugh, Access & Reference Services Librarian: zclaybaugh@dom.edu
Ben DeBiasio, Community Learning & Outreach Librarian: bdebiasio1@dom.edu
Rebekkah LaRue, Technical Services Librarian: rlarue1@dom.edu
If you must step away from the desk, please click the “Set Away” tab at the top lefthand side of your screen. When you return, remember to deselect the check box and return to an Online status.
Finally, chat reference is not a quick answer service—we help patrons formulate and conduct effective and efficient research strategies, but we do not provide resources without explaining how to acquire them. It is best practice to provide a patron with 1 – 2 articles related to their inquiry, coupled with a description on how to access the article themselves and continue their research. You will almost always need to incorporate this instruction into your reference interviews.
The service is intended for Dominican University students, faculty, staff, and related affiliates. We will always answer questions from the public, as long as they are within our scope to address. It is courteous and reflects well on the library if you can help an unaffiliated patron to identify their local library, an association or government website, or even help formulate a good internet search.
Chat reference questions should reflect the kinds of questions you encounter through in-person and telephone reference interviews.
Patrons with longer (>20 minutes) questions should be given some instruction on where to get started (for example, shown how to use the catalog or an appropriate database), and then referred to our librarians through either the reference@dom.edu email or by having them complete a “Research Help Request” at https://dom.libwizard.com/f/researchhelp for further assistance. Consultations that exceed 20 minutes would be classified as a Research Appointment, rather than a chat correspondence.
Referrals should be done in concert with your own efforts to answer a research question. You can make a referral for a patron by emailing the reference@dom.edu address. This will alert our librarians to follow up with the patron and provide them with information to make that process as seamless as possible. When you are sending a sending a referral email for a patron, please include the following information:
Reference Analytics must be recorded after every Reference transaction. No question is too small to add to our analytics. Any in person, telephone, and chat reference question should be recorded in Reference Analytics. *Note that Reference Analytics automatically appears after the conclusion of a chat session, so you will not need to access the Reference Analytics tab to record these interactions. For all other transactions, you can access the Reference Analytics portal through the following procedures:
Reference Analytics are used to monitor trends in user needs and provide transcripts for training. This information is a valuable tool in remaining current on our patron’s needs as they develop.
Chat transcripts are logged into the LibAnswers software with patron names anonymized. Never disseminate a patron’s question except for referral to another library unit.
The transcripts will be monitored for training and evaluation purposes, statistics, and development of our FAQ, by the Reference Management Team and supervisors. We encourage reading through chat transcripts as a training tool, so be aware that everyone with a LibChat account can read all transcripts.
Questions should be taken in the order they are received, regardless of format/communications medium. Be sure to acknowledge each patron, letting them know that you are helping someone else and will be with them as soon as you can.
It is often possible to assist an in-person patron who has a short question at the same time as you have a chat patron on the line (or vice versa). This does require some juggling and you will become more adept at managing them over time. Use your professional judgment about what you can handle.
Complete reference interviews (following the RUSA Guidelines located in the “Reference Guidelines” tab) should be conducted in chat reference, with a particular emphasis on clarifying the question prior to searching.
Chat transactions typically take longer than in-person transactions, so it is important to correctly identify a patron’s full information need before beginning a search.
A complete reference interview includes the following elements:
Example Patron: “I am having trouble finding articles on marine mammal habitats.”
Possible greetings:
Possible questions:
Possible strategies:
Possible approaches:
Possible follow-ups:
• “Did we find enough information for you to continue your search?”
• “While you’re looking, we have librarians who can provide some additional suggestions, if necessary. You can contact them at reference@dom.edu or by completing a “Research Help Request” at https://dom.libwizard.com/f/researchhelp.
• “We offer consultations by appointment if you want to talk about your research in more depth with an expert once we’re done. Just fill out the “Research Help Request” form at https://dom.libwizard.com/f/researchhelp”
• Keep in touch. Keep users informed by constantly informing them of what you are doing.
• Break messages up. Try not to send a giant wall of text.
• Offer reassurance. Many patrons have apprehensions about research or are frustrated with their inability to find results prior to contacting a librarian. Reassure them that they have made the right choice contacting you, and you will help them be successful.
• Use inclusive language. Emphasize how “we” will conduct a search together, rather than providing a list of commands for “you” to follow.
• Communicate time expectations. Provide a reasonable estimate on how long a search might take. If you are going to need to do some searching on your own to start, or need to leave the chat, provide a realistic estimate on how long you will be gone (e.g. don’t say “back in a minute” unless you really will be back in 60 seconds).
Provide instruction to patrons appropriate to their level of knowledge of the library system and research in general. Key areas to look for teachable moments are:
• Topic Formulation
o Has the patron defined their question sufficiently to perform a successful search?
o Has the patron chosen appropriate keywords for their topic?
• Search Strategy
Does the patron know which databases or sources are appropriate for their topic and where to find them?
o Does the patron know how to correctly enter a search into a database?
o Does the patron know how to use relevant features of a search tool?
• Interpreting Results
o Does the patron understand the appropriate criteria for evaluating search results?
o Does the patron know how to find the full text of results they found? If a full text is not available, do they know how to continue their search through other means?
Dempsey, P.R. (2016). “Are you a computer?”: Opening exchanges in virtual reference shape the potential for teaching. College and Research Libraries, 77(4), 455-468. doi: 10.5860/crl.77.4.455.
Hunter, J., Kannegiser, S., Kiebler, J. & Meky, D. (2019). Chat reference: Evaluating customer service and IL instruction. Reference Services Review, 47(2), 134–150. https://doi.org/10.1108/RSR-02-2019-0006
Oakleaf, M. & VanScoy, A. (2010). Instructional strategies for digital reference: Methods to facilitate student learning. Reference and User Services Quarterly, 49(4), 380-390.
Radford, Marie et al. (2011). On Virtual Face-Work: An Ethnography of Communication Approach to a Live Chat Reference Interaction. The Library Quarterly, 81(4) 431-453.
Adapted from the University Library at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign’s “Chat Reference Policies & Procedures”: https://www.library.illinois.edu/committees/wp-content/uploads/sites/89/2023/08/Chat-Reference-Policy-Guide-Fall-2023.pdf
