San Jose State University: Experiences with and Goals for Virtual
Reference
Charity Hope, Reference Librarian,
cbhope@email.sjsu.edu
SJSU has several months of experience in Q&A
Café. There are a total of 120 Bay area
librarians involved. The Q&A Café
operates M-F 3-9 PM. Of the 24
libraries participating, only 2 are academic.
SJSU has 5 librarians participating. amd their involvement was sparked
by Tina Peterson (distance librarian).
On Thursday afternoons when Charity is working, the average is 1
question per hour. “Powered by your
librarian” is the catchphrase. The questions
are really ready reference. The goal is 10 minutes or less per question. Public libraries meet the information needs
of the community, while in a university
library, the primary goal is teaching.
What were SJSU’s goals of participating in
Q&A Café?
1.
To build and strengthen partnerships with other
libraries.
SJSU and SJ
Public are building a merged library so anything that will build the
partnership is important. Can’t do it
alone.
2.
To build new skills and diversify our range of
expertise.
This is
staffing a public library reference desk, using chat and local library
resources or public web sites.
3.
To explore new technologies for enhanced
teaching.
This was the
primary spark for participation.
Findings to date include:
·
Questions are similar, and include fiction,
homework and reporter questions.
·
The focus is remote users, so e-resources are relied upon. Working without subscription databases,
found that the Internet has more than we realize and that as academic
librarians we underutilize the public web and the invisible web.
·
Exploring the technology gives ideas of its
potential.
·
Use chat style of communication (abbreviations,
symbols).
How can digital reference serve in an
educational role? Finding the teachable moment, any time, any place. We are in the question business – not the
answer business. Use it to help clarify
questions and to suggest which information to explore first. Help in evaluation of resources.
The context in which we teach is that users are
frequently remote; users are no longer necessarily in the library – they may be
doing distance learning or otherwise be remote users. Even in the library, students may not relate. The librarians’ job is to overcome research
barrier so fragments fall into place.
There are limits to canned web based instruction. Need
human to human interaction/ mind to mind communication.
Librarians work through the research
process. There is an artistry to
acquiring information, not just techniques.
Where and how to search, integrating information into a knowledge base –
we call it information competence.
Learning, making choices, getting feedback. Students in dialog with librarians learn better judgment.
What are some of the potential teaching uses for
this technology?
·
Pushing pages/escort: why not have the patron choose and have the librarian give
feedback?
·
1 on 1 meetings
·
Place the icon near problem databases to
encourage users to seek assistance with these
While this technology may seem limiting now, it
will not just be limited to chat in the future; voice over IP is likely to be
integrated.