The Effects of Librarians’ Behavioral Performance on User Satisfaction in Chat Reference Services

Nahyun Kwon is Assistant Professor and Vicki L. Gregory is Professor, School of Library and Information Science, University of South Florida, Tampa. This manuscript was based on a presentation by Kwon, “Assessing the Virtual Reference Success using the Revised RUSA Guidelines for Behavioral Performance of Reference and Information Service Providers,” at the 6th Virtual Reference Desk Conference, Cincinnati, Ohio, November 8-9, 2004. Submitted for review March 11, 2005; revised and accepted for publication May 2, 2006.

References and Notes

1. Julie Arnold and Neal Kaske, “Evaluating the Quality of a Chat Service,” portal: Libraries and the Academy 5 (Apr. 2005): 177-93; Steve Coffman and Linda Arret, “To Chat or Not to Chat–Taking Another Look at Virtual Reference, Part I,” Searcher 12, no. 7 (July/Aug. 2004): 38-46; Steve Coffman and Linda Arret, “To Chat or Not to Chat–Taking Another Look at Virtual Reference, Part II,” Searcher 12, no. 8 (Sept. 2004): 49-56; Abby Kasowitz, Blythe Bennett, and R. David Lankes, “Quality Standards for Digital Reference Consortia,” Reference & User Services Quarterly 39, no. 4 (2000): 355-63; Julie Kibbee, David Ward, and Wei Ma, “Virtual Service, Real Data: Results of a Pilot Study,” Reference Services Review 30, no. 1 (2002): 25-36; Diane Nester Kresh, “Offering High Quality Reference Service on the Web: The Collaborative Digital Reference Service (CDRS),” D-Lib Magazine 6 no. 6 (June 2000), www.dlib.org/dlib/june00/kresh/06kresh.html (accessed Aug. 1, 2005); Diane Kresh, “High Touch or High Tech: The Collaborative Digital Reference Service As a Model for the Future of Reference,” Advances in Librarianship 26 (2002): 149-73; Jana Ronan and Carol Turner, Chat Reference: A SPEC Kit, Spec Kit 273 (Washington D.C.: Association of Research Libraries, 2002); Bernie Sloan, “Collaborative Live Reference Services,” www.lis.uiuc.edu/~b-sloan/collab.htm (accessed July 7, 2005); Jo Bell Whitlatch, “Reference Service Effectiveness,” RQ 30 (Winter 1990): 205-20.
2. Reference and User Services Association, “Guidelines for Behavioral Performance of Reference and Information Service Providers,” rev. June 2004, www.ala.org/ala/rusa/rusaprotools/referenceguide/guidelinesbehavioral.htm (accessed Aug. 1, 2005).
3. “Guidelines for Behavioral Performance of Reference and Information Services Professionals,” Reference & User Services Quarterly 36, no. 2 (1996): 200-03.
4. Jeffrey N. Gatten and Carolyn J. Radcliff, “Assessing Reference Behaviors with Unobtrusive Testing,” in Library Evaluation: A Casebook and Can-Do Guide, eds. Danny P. Wallace and Connie Van Fleet, 105-15 (Englewood, Colo.: Libraries Unlimited, 2001); Matthew L. Saxton, “Evaluation of Reference Service in Public Libraries Using a Hierarchical Linear Model: Applying Multiple Regression Analysis to a Multi-Level Research” (Ph.D. diss., University of California, Los Angeles, 2000).
5. Ralph Gers and Lillie J. Seward, “Improving Reference Performance: Results of a Statewide Study,” Library Journal 110 (Nov. 1, 1985): 32-35.
6. Saxton, “Evaluation of Reference Service.”
7. Gatten and Radcliff, “Assessing Reference Behaviors”; Mathew L. Saxton and John V. Richardson, Understanding Reference Transactions: Transforming an Art into a Science (San Diego: Academic Pr., 2002).
8. Ian J. Lee, “Do Virtual Reference Librarians Dream of Digital Reference Questions?: A Qualitative and Quantitative Analysis of Email and Chat Reference,” Australian Academic & Research Libraries 35, no. 2 (2004): 95-110; Joseph E. Straw, “A Virtual Understanding: The Reference Interview and Question Negotiation in the Digital Age,” Reference & User Services Quarterly 39, no. 4 (2000): 376-79; Carol Tenopir, “Chat’s Positive Side,” Library Journal 129 (Dec. 15, 2004): 42.
9. International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions, Reference and Information Services Section, “IFLA Digital Reference Guidelines,” www.ifla.org/VII/s36/pubs/drg03.htm (accessed Aug. 19, 2005).
10. Kimberly A. Neuendorf, The Content Analysis Guidebook (Thousand Oaks, Calif.; Sage, 2000).
11. Suzanne Bakken et al., “Evaluation of the Clinical LOINC Semantic Structure As a Terminology Model for Standardized Assessment Measures,” Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association 7 (Nov/Dec. 2000): 529-38.
12. Morton Hunt, How Science Takes Stock: The Story of Meta-analysis (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1997).
13. Gatten and Radcliff, “Assessing Reference Behaviors”; Saxton, “Evaluation of Reference Service.”
14. Ethel Auster, “User Satisfaction with the Online Negotiation Interview: Contemporary Concern in Traditional Perspective,” RQ 23 (1983): 47-59; George D’Elia and Sandra Walsh, “User Satisfaction with Library Service–A Measure of Public Library Performance?” Library Quarterly 53 (1983): 109-33; Joan Durrance, “Reference Success: Does the 55 Percent Rule Tell the Whole Story?” Library Journal 114 (Apr. 15, 1989): 31-32; Kirsti Nilsen, “The Library Visit Study: User Experiences at the Virtual Reference Desk,” Information Research 9, no. 2 (Jan. 2004), available at: http://InformationR.net/ir/9-2/paper171.html (accessed Aug. 1, 2005); Saxton and Richardson, Understanding Reference Transactions; Jo Bell Whitlatch, “Client/Service Provider Perceptions of Reference Service Outcomes in Academic Libraries: Effects of Feedback and Uncertainty” (Ph.D. diss., University of California, Berkeley, 1987).
15. Robert F. DeVellis, Scale Development: Theory and Applications (Newbury Park, Calif.: Sage, 1991).
16. A numeric value on the five-point scale was assigned to each of the verbal descriptors in the three questionnaire items. To minimize the arbitrariness in assigning numeric values to the verbal descriptors, two alternative scales (such as four- and six-point scales) also were employed in addition to the selected five-point scale by making slight variations in the value assignment. When the test results from a series of statistical analyses for research question 2 and research question 3 were compared for all three scales to examine the stability of the assigned values, the test results were identical across all three scales, indicating the value assignment on the five-point scale is stable and reliable.
17. Jum C. Nunnally, Psychometric Theory, 2d ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1978).
18. Catherine Sheldrick Ross and Patricia Dewdney, “Negative Closure: Strategies and Counter-Strategies in the Reference Transaction,” Reference & User Services Quarterly 38, no. 2 (1998): 151-63.
19. Gatten and Radcliff, “Assessing Reference Behaviors.”
20. Rae R. Newton and Kjell Erik Rudestam, Your Statistical Consultant: Answers to Your Data Analysis Questions (Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage, 1999).
21. Gatten and Radcliff, “Assessing Reference Behaviors”; Saxton, “Evaluation of Reference Service.”
22. Ethel Auster and Stephen Lawton, “Search Interview Technique and Information Gain As Antecedents of User Satisfaction with Online Bibliographic Retrieval,” Journal of the American Society for Information Science 35 (1984): 90-103; Gatten and Radcliff, “Assessing Reference Behaviors”; Catherine Sheldrick Ross, Kirsti Nilsen, and Patricia Dewdney, Conducting the Reference Interview (New York: Neal-Schuman, 2002).
23. Gers and Seward, “Improving Reference Performance,” 34.
24. Patricia Dewdney and Catherine S. Ross, “Flying a Light Aircraft: Reference Service Evaluation from a User’s Viewpoint,” RQ 34, no. 2 (1994): 227.
25. Ibid., 217-30.

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