Report on: "Virtual Reference, Practical and Technical Aspects of Providing This Service" -Presenters- Susan McMullen, & Janice Schuster , Sarah Tudesco & Linda Zieper and Heather MacFarlane Questions and Discussion College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, MA 01610 by Melissa Behney, Connecticut College View the program agenda. [HTML]
November 4, 2002

HELIN Consortium of Rhode Island Academic Library
Presented by:  Susan McMullen, Information Resources/Reference Librarian, Roger Williams University and Janice Schuster, Coordinator of Reference Services/Reference Librarian, Providence College

The HELIN consortium recognized the need for providing virtual reference. The growing use of technology combined with the number of distance education, commuter, and evening students has created an unmet need. The history of collaboration between the HELIN reference librarians, including their monthly reference committee meetings, provided an excellent opportunity to work on this project. Seven members of the Reference/Public Access Committee (RefPAC), including Janice Schuster and Susan McMullen, formed the Virtual Reference Service Subcommittee.

The subcommittee's first concern was how to proceed. HELIN consists of eight institutions with different staffing models, resources, and clientele. The subcommittee surveyed library staffs at each institution and developed a preliminary proposal for a HELIN Virtual Reference Service in October 2001 and revised it in May 2002 after input from the library directors of the HELIN libraries. They invited LSSI and Convey for demonstrations and selected LSSI as the vendor. They chose LSSI because the software could be adapted to meet the needs of the various libraries, and it offered co-browsing capability, customer support and training. The software resides at LSSI allowing the librarians to log in from anywhere.

Initially they planned to offer the service from 6 p.m. until midnight Monday through Friday. Staffing would be based on availability with all eight institutions participating at some level, though not necessarily for the same number of hours per week. After meeting to discuss scheduling, the group was able to pool hours and devise a schedule to offer coverage from 3 p.m. until 10 p.m. Sunday through Thursday. Thirty-six librarians from eight institutions participate with each institution covering one to eight hours per week broken into one to two hour shifts. Each institution also has its own Virtual Reference Administrator.

The initial vendor fee included money for software set up and training for 24 librarians. The Virtual Reference Administrators offered additional training for approximately 10 additional staff members. The training consisted of basic and Internet toolkits as well as using co-browsing and escorting. The subcommittee also needed two to three weeks lead time to create implementation forms for librarian logins and to design a web site with a login form for patrons. They went live with the service in September 2002.

When using the LSSI software, the librarian must use Internet Explorer. The patron can use almost any web browser. The group decided not to authenticate patrons but to ask for an e-mail address and phone number, their institutional affiliation, and status (graduate or undergraduate). Initial problems included: proxy for databases not working, librarians being logged out, slow connections resulting in losing as many patrons as they were able to help in the first month, the survey not being loaded promptly, and a need for customer support. In September, 50% of calls were lost. In October, 33% of calls were lost. The administrators are not certain if this is attributable to software issues or patron wait time.

The preliminary Patron Satisfaction Survey results (17 respondents) indicate:
94% are library users
94% hours of service met their needs
88% HELIN Live Reference Service provided a needed service
88% the service made them more aware of library resources
88% did not experience technical difficulties
24% prefer to ask in person, by telephone or e-mail
100% would use the service again

Future - with only two months of data, it is too early to make any determinations. There are system glitches to overcome including the lost calls and proxy issues. There is also a need for quality control within the consortium as well as a need for more marketing. Johnson and Wales has done the most marketing and has been the biggest user of the service.

View Susan McMullen & Janice Shuster's MS Powerpoint presentation: AskHELIN – Virtual Reference Pilot Project

University of Massachusetts Project
Presented by:  Sarah Tudesco, Systems and Digital Services Librarian, University of Massachusetts Boston & Linda Zieper, Information Services Librarian, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth

The UMass 2000 Digital Library Initiative included the five UMass campuses: Amherst, Boston, Dartmouth, Lowell, and Worcester. The first meeting was held in August 2000. Impediments to creating a virtual reference service were identified as lack of experience with virtual reference, limited experience with cooperative projects among the campuses, a budget that limited the product choices, and a limited set of common reference resources. Beyond the basic databases and a few netLibrary titles, the five campuses do not share a lot of common resources. In addition, four of the campuses use Endeavor as their library system, but Amherst does not.

In January 2001, the group selected Live Person as their vendor. The selection was based on cost, simplicity, popularity, track record, and free tech support. Some libraries, including those at Cornell and Carnegie Mellon, had been using Live Person for about a year. The librarians at UMass purchased notebook computers to download the software on and self-trained. They note that free tech support is not always ideal. When librarians are not available, questions may be submitted via e-mail.

Software features: