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Pascal Lupien Lorna Rourke Academic Liaison Librarians University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada CIL —24 March 2006. Out of the Question!... How We Are Using Our Students’ Virtual Reference Questions to Add a Personal Touch to a Virtual World. What We’ll Do Today.
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Pascal Lupien Lorna Rourke Academic Liaison Librarians University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada CIL —24 March 2006 Out of the Question!... How We Are Using Our Students’ Virtual Reference Questions to Add a Personal Touch to a Virtual World
What We’ll Do Today • Background--about our project • What the questions told us • How we’re using students’ questions to enhance our library services • Adjournment (off to the bars!)
In Other Words We’ll Talk About • What we did • What we learned • What we did with what we learned
An Overview of Our Project • Using Docutek Virtual Reference software • Analysis of transcripts—examined the questions our users are asking… in order serve them more effectively
…Our Project… • Opportunity to use transcripts to analyze the words students use—are they the same words libraries use? • Using transcripts with other methods—Q&A board, anecdotal ref. desk, relationships with faculty and students, etc. Much not written down … these complement everything else we do
Background Information… • About the University of Guelph 16,748 Full-time Undergraduate and Graduate Enrolments; 16,000 Distance Education course enrolments
…About Our VR Service: • Offered since 2001 • 10 staff—Librarians and Library Associates • Monday to Friday, daytime • Just added MSN chat to Docutek
Literature Review What has been written so far: • Types of questions asked in VR vs. traditional Ref. Desk • Identifying types of users, resources • Quality of responses based on ACRL Standards
Literature Review How our focus is different: • VR transcripts provide a record of the LANGUAGE / WORDS students use • We wanted to use the students’ words to create a knowledgebase that would be searchable using the students’ language
Work of John Kupersmith…(U. California, Berkeley) • Want to acknowledge Kupersmith’s work regarding “Library terms that users understand”—based on usability testing of websites, focus groups, etc. • http://www.jkup.net/terms.html
*Now…the Details of Our Project Methodology: • Reviewed and analyzed over 600 Virtual Reference questions • Reviewed entire transcript only if clarification of what the user wanted was needed
Categories • Sears, J. Chat reference service: An analysis of one semester's data. Issues in Science & Technology Librarianship, 32. • Katz, W.A. Questions and Searches. Introduction to Reference Work, Volume I: Basic Information Sources. 8th ed. Boston: McGraw-Hill.
What Types of Questions? • Directional • Policy and procedure • Ready reference • Specific search
What Types of Questions? Directional 14.8% Specific Search 41.7% Policy and Procedure 39.4% Ready Ref. 4.6%
Top 5 Recurring Questions • How to find journal articles • Questions about general search strategies • Off-campus access • Locating library web resources • Library accounts
These 5 Questions.. • Reinforced our perceptions—provided empirical evidence—not possible with traditional reference desk • Emphasized areas in which students need assistance
Subject Specific Questions Top 5 subjects: • History • Geography • Food Science • Leadership • Zoology
Who Are Our Users?… 47% 17% 15% 13% 5% 0.18%
Where Are Our Users? Why We Care… • Majority in library • Why are they using VR and not the reference desk? • Should market to offices, residences, DE students?
What words don’t students say? I N D E X D A T A B A S E
Don’t Assume! • “Scholarly Journals” ? …or… • “Academic Journals”
So… based on what we learned from this… • Doesn’t it make sense to use students’ words when developing a website…? • We can use student words for creating metadata for our knowledgebase
*So… We Are Using Our Students’ Questions to Enhance Library Services….
…In Five Areas: • Enhancing our online services • Enhancing our collections • Enhancing our relationships • Enhancing our skills • Enhancing the library as place
Enhancing Our Online Services • Knowledgebase • Purpose—for users and for staff • Software options—Docutek, IntelliResponse, and homegrown
Whatever option we choose… Criteria—User friendly, searchable, “natural language”
Enhancing Our Online Services Continued… b. Online tutorials, pathfinders, etc. --e.g.— “Finding journal articles”—changed name from “Journal indexes” based on transcripts --e.g.— Created GEOG 2210 research guide
Enhancing Our Online Services…more… • Improving the library website --Student-friendly language --Off campus access—put a link on our homepage
*Enhancing Our Collections • How VR transcripts help us identify gaps in our collections: • e.g. Business journals and resources—can prove that resources are needed
Enhancing Our Relationships a. For Liaison Librarians / Information Literacy: • Courses or difficult assignments causing problems for students—need for library instruction, working with faculty to plan courses, drop-ins, online tutorials • Problems/Errors within assignments themselves • Difficulty creating bibliographies—RefWorks sessions
Enhancing our relationships… • For Reference Services: • Starting Roving Reference—since so many students are not coming to the Reference desks, we’ll come to them! • Offered “Customer service” training for all staff
Enhancing Our Skills Staff having difficulty with some questions, e.g. Government Publications, GIS… So…. We are offering cross-training, workshops for staff, clarifying referrals and contact information