Monday, September 10, 2007
Sweating the Small Stuff
So today I received a very nice message in my Hotmail account (aka, all-purpose-spam-catcher that I use to sign up for things like virtual reference services) from a very nice virtual reference coordinator at the state library regarding my recent post about my Ask a Librarian experience. She apologized, said they're reviewing the interaction, that a "technical difficulty" caused Librarian Bruce to disconnect, and that:
While I do appreciate the personal response from the state library -- and the original question isn't even particularly relevant at this point -- my point still remains: what impressions do patrons get about librarians and library services from their online interactions? I have yet to hear from Bruce or my home library, even with a note saying that my question is taking long than expected, sorry, or that they need more clarification, or even an autoresponse that says it's been kicked back to my home library. Nothing in my online account indicates it's been kicked back to my own library. In Internet time, 8 days is an eternity.
I wonder about what good it really does us to "slam the boards" if, as K.G. Schneider comments, we're engaging in "half-right reference." If expertise and personal service is what we're marketing, then we should do a bit better than that.
I don't mean to single out QuestionPoint or my state's virtual reference in particular -- I've had both abysmal and fantastic experiences in person at library reference desks, too, and know you can't judge a service from a single interaction. I think it goes back, though, to the need to "sweat the small stuff." I have years of positive library interactions and work experience behind me, so one negative interaction is negligible. To someone who doesn't visit libraries, who doesn't love libraries, who never worked in a library, one negative experience might be all they are judging us by.
When a technical difficulty occurs or if the chatting librarian believes that the patron's home library can be of better assistance the question is sent to shared follow-up. Your question, for example, can be found in shared follow-up for Downer's Grove Public to complete the answer. This prevents a question and patron from being "lost", so that the home library can answer the question.My question is still showing "pending" in my QuestionPoint account; today is day 8.
While I do appreciate the personal response from the state library -- and the original question isn't even particularly relevant at this point -- my point still remains: what impressions do patrons get about librarians and library services from their online interactions? I have yet to hear from Bruce or my home library, even with a note saying that my question is taking long than expected, sorry, or that they need more clarification, or even an autoresponse that says it's been kicked back to my home library. Nothing in my online account indicates it's been kicked back to my own library. In Internet time, 8 days is an eternity.
I wonder about what good it really does us to "slam the boards" if, as K.G. Schneider comments, we're engaging in "half-right reference." If expertise and personal service is what we're marketing, then we should do a bit better than that.
I don't mean to single out QuestionPoint or my state's virtual reference in particular -- I've had both abysmal and fantastic experiences in person at library reference desks, too, and know you can't judge a service from a single interaction. I think it goes back, though, to the need to "sweat the small stuff." I have years of positive library interactions and work experience behind me, so one negative interaction is negligible. To someone who doesn't visit libraries, who doesn't love libraries, who never worked in a library, one negative experience might be all they are judging us by.
Labels: askalibrarian, questionpoint, slamtheboards, virtualreference
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There are many, many advantages to large statewide digital reference services. Unfortunately, your experience is probably a glaring example of what I've seen as the main disadvantage. The individual libraries in the state are getting local and/or in-depth research questions they show little interest in answering.
There are a number of possible reasons - no one at that library was trained to use the software to find the "followup" questions. Or the staff at that library never bought into the statewide service, have no vested interest in seeing it succeed, and service suffers as a result. Or they may focus on questions come into their legacy email account over ones that originated in chat because their staff are already overwhelmed with too much work, too little time.
I'm sure there are many exceptions to this. Libraries that check all their chat transcripts as part of quality review would have caught your question within a day or two, for example. Over time, as these statewide services like Illinois' mature, hopefully such libraries will become the rule, rather than the exception. Until then, I agree that it is sad when a question slips through the cracks like yours did.
There are a number of possible reasons - no one at that library was trained to use the software to find the "followup" questions. Or the staff at that library never bought into the statewide service, have no vested interest in seeing it succeed, and service suffers as a result. Or they may focus on questions come into their legacy email account over ones that originated in chat because their staff are already overwhelmed with too much work, too little time.
I'm sure there are many exceptions to this. Libraries that check all their chat transcripts as part of quality review would have caught your question within a day or two, for example. Over time, as these statewide services like Illinois' mature, hopefully such libraries will become the rule, rather than the exception. Until then, I agree that it is sad when a question slips through the cracks like yours did.
I've been very disappointed with my home library when it comes to basic communication, too. I IMed them recently to ask if they provide a notary service. After an hour of no response in my IM window, I gave up and asked them to email the response to me. I got an email within a half hour after that.
A couple of weeks later, I IMed them to ask about dropping off some donations. Again, no response. So I called because I was in a hurry and needed an answer quickly, but the phone rang a dozen times with no answer.
I totally understand being overwhelmed and understaffed, but libraries shouldn't provide online reference services if they're not prepared to support them properly. I never even got a response on IM like, "Can you please hold for a moment while I finish up helping someone else?"
My two interactions (and this doesn't even count the couple of disappointing times I used the statewide service last year) have left me feeling like I shouldn't even bother with it anymore. How must the patrons feel?
Jenny Levine
http://theshiftedlibrarian.com/
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A couple of weeks later, I IMed them to ask about dropping off some donations. Again, no response. So I called because I was in a hurry and needed an answer quickly, but the phone rang a dozen times with no answer.
I totally understand being overwhelmed and understaffed, but libraries shouldn't provide online reference services if they're not prepared to support them properly. I never even got a response on IM like, "Can you please hold for a moment while I finish up helping someone else?"
My two interactions (and this doesn't even count the couple of disappointing times I used the statewide service last year) have left me feeling like I shouldn't even bother with it anymore. How must the patrons feel?
Jenny Levine
http://theshiftedlibrarian.com/
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