Article Note: On using library chat reference to answer campus questions

This article caught my eye initially because I do not recall people using our library chat reference much to answer campus specific questions. I would have to dig into our local statistics to be more certain, but at least from what I have observed in our chat reference service questions related to the campus are minimal. A good question for us to explore down the road may be where are people going then to get campus-specific answers, but that is another story for now. 

This article's goal is to investigate how academic libraries not only provide academic assistance but whether they are seen as an option to provide information on their campuses. In their opening, the authors remind us how chat reference services in libraries picked up during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our virtual services certainly picked up during the pandemic's prime time days. 

Authors establish topic relevance for the article by connecting the growth of chat services to the need of libraries to prove their value to stakeholders, in this case campus administrators. That is certainly one of the reason we and other libraries are always collecting a variety of service statistics; we have to justify our existence to the bean counters. For example, we collect data on things such as number of research consults and library instruction sessions. One of the places that data ends up is on the campus fact book, which is available online on the campus website. So in a way an ulterior motive for this article is to show a library's value to its campus community.

The significance of this study is that, unlike previous studies of reference chat services in libraries, none up to now has focused on whether a reference chat service answers campus related questions that are not related to the library. 

Some highlights from the article: 

• Method: Analysis of chat transcripts from 5 large four-year public universities during the 2-year period of 2019 to 2021. The choice of campuses "were selected based on only the affiliations of the collaborating authors and do not necessarily reflect a representative sample" (15). To be honest, that is a small sample, but that is somewhat consistent with this type of LIS article.
• What they found: "This study found that non-library campus questions, on average, accounted for 2.44% of library chat questions, a relatively small proportion of all library chats" (12). At this low percent, I would not call this "filling a gap." Again, I do wonder where are patrons and others going for that information. 
• A curious to me finding is that this kind of information from reference chat may be "a more significant resources for less privileged student populations" (12). Not sure at this point what to make of that. 
• They did notice that reference chat often gets IT-related questions. A possible reason could be "their I.T. department may have insufficient hours of staffing" (13). I can testify to this a bit since our I.T. department is fairly notorious for their insufficient hours of staffing. I'd call them bankers' hours except bankers these days actually open late and on weekends. 
• Call for further research: "Further research building on this study could examine the prevalence of campus-related questions at physical service points in the library and compare this to chat" (15). They also suggest doing some comparisons with private institutions. 
• One good thing of analyzing chat reference transcripts: "...these transcripts provide a unique opportunity to identify areas where students are in need of additional information and support. The data can help identify offices and services on campus with which library chat operators should be most familiar and prepared to address in chat inquiries" (16). 

Article citation: Erin Owens, et.al., "Beyond the Library: the Role of Academic Libraries' Chat Reference in Answering Campus Questions." The Reference Librarian (April 2024): 1-24. 

I got this one via Interlibrary Loan.