Article Note: On Library Consultations and the Pandemic

With the pandemic and the shutdown of on campus instruction in March 2020, we soon knew that we would have to make changes to our library services to emphasize more virtual services. At the time, students and faculty moved to teaching online, and the library moved along with them. We already offered reference services via e-mail, phone, and text messaging, but our main emphasis was on in person research consultations. That was no longer an option in the COVID, so we moved to implement virtual chat as another option as well as doing research consultations via ZOOM online meetings. This has worked pretty well for us so far. Naturally, now that I am seeing people writing articles on this topic I am interested in seeing what they have to say and see what I may be able to learn. 

 

This article looks at the relationship between how librarians perceive difficulty in an academic consultation and how those perceptions may change due to COVID-19 and campus closures. The key here is that we are looking at librarian perceptions. This article may be of interest to library managers seeking to learn more on the topic in order to assist in librarian workload management, scheduling, and providing other support to the librarians including additional training as needed. In addition, keep in mind this article looks more at larger campuses and campuses that may have multiple campus locations. I will note here that our small residential campus would be a contrast, but there are still some lessons for places like us. 

 

Some highlights from the article and my comments and/or thoughts: 

 

•  "The effects on librarians of providing these services and the use of reference statistics in predicting or assessing librarian workload and effort are comparatively little studies" (2).
  
• The focus is usually on the patrons, their needs and satisfaction levels, information we often use to justify our work. We do not look at ourselves very much unless it is to say "we did good" based on how the patrons did or more often their satisfaction with our services. 
• "This virtual service is particularly important for libraries serving institutions with multiple campuses or extensive distance-learning programs" (3).
  
• Indeed it is. For us, our challenge was the we are a residential campus. At the time, we did not have a full distance learning structure in place. That our faculty and our IT along with our students and us to support where we could shifted as well as we all did is commendable. We had just hired a new position: a Digital Initiatives Librarian. I can say that she soon had plenty of work to keep her very busy. 
•  "Transitioning to fully online modes of patron interaction during the recent disruption has enabled librarians to provide community service, emphasize their ongoing availability to student and faculty researchers, and develop and test new skills and strategies" (3).
  
• For us, challenging as well was our student demographic, which when distant come from various locations, many with poor Internet access. If anything, this also highlighted equity and access issues. As best they could, the college did step up to address these issues. 
• "Currently, though, there is little known about how difficulty of interactions compare between special collections units and other specialized teams or institutions' overall reference services, especially during a disruptive event like COVID-19 that limits the team's and researchers' access to collections" (4).
• "First, and most timely, the results show that the average difficulty of patron interactions has increased since the [Institution] campuses closed due to COVID-19" (7).
  
• This would seem obvious. 
• "These results may also mean that librarians need to be able to allocate larger portions of their time toward individual patron interactions at the expense of time spent on other duties in order to maintain a healthy work schedule" (7).
  
• As often the case, you need to be asking what needs to be dropped in order to keep providing the most essential services. 
•  "On an individual level, librarians can use these findings to potentially identify sources of strain and opportunities for growth with respect to how they engage with patrons. Library administrators and supervisors can use these findings to inform deeper assessments of service operations, develop effective training programs, and better ensure that librarians receive the support they need to prevent burnout, particularly during periods of disruption or when providing increased remote services" (8).
  
• For training and programs, something more than being told "take time off" and breath deeply. 
  

 Citation for the article:

Anderson, Raeda, Katherine Fisher, and Jeremy Walker, "Library Consultations and a Global Pandemic: An Analysis of Consultation Difficulty during COVID-19 across Multiple Factors." Journal of Academic Librarianship 47.1 (2021). 

Some items from the article's bibliography I may want to look at down the road: 

• Bennett, J.L. (2017). Virtual research consultations study. Internet Reference Services Quarterly 22(4), 193-200.
• Need to ILL this one. 
• Betancourt, N (2020, April 220. Student experiences during COVID-19: Actionable insights driving institutional support for students. Ithaka S + R.  https://sr.ithaka.org/blog/student-experiences-during-covid-19/. (Available online, plus Ithaka has a COVID-19 page of additional resources to look over).
• Maddox, Jennifer and Stanfield, Leigh, "Did It Work?: The Effects Of Research Consultations On The Quality Of Sources Used In An Undergraduate Class." (2020). Georgia International Conference on Information Literacy. 13.
  https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/gaintlit/2020/2020/13. 
• MAGI, Trina J.; MARDEUSZ, Patricia E.. What students need from reference librarians: Exploring the complexity of the individual consultation. College & Research Libraries News, [S.l.], v. 74, n. 6, p. 288-291, june 2013. ISSN 2150-6698. Available at: <https://crln.acrl.org/index.php/crlnews/article/view/8959/9706>
• Lauren Newton & Daniel E. Feinberg (2020) Assisting, Instructing, Assessing: 21st Century Student Centered Librarianship, The Reference Librarian, 61:1, 25-41 
• Need to ILL this one. 
• Reiter, L., & Cole, C. (2019). Beyond Face Value: Evaluating Research Consultations from the Student Perspective. Reference & User Services Quarterly, 59(1), 23-30. Available online at RUSA: https://www.journals.ala.org/index.php/rusq/article/view/7222.