The NYU Survey Service: Promoting Value in Undergraduate Education

New York University's (NYU) Data Service Studio has recently launched the NYU Survey Service, whose ultimate aim is to support the development and administration of surveys of all types. For the Web-based component, the service utilizes a product called Qualtrics, which allows university affiliates to develop and administer Web-based surveys. This article describes the process by which NYU came to offer the service during a time when concerns abound about the ability of libraries to support and expand offerings while still meeting institutional imperatives such as robust data services. While many considerations went into the evaluation and ultimate conclusion to pilot the service, this article considers those most related to library collaborations, undergraduate instruction, data and information literacy, learning and research, and application administration and support.     

Wired New Jersey: Q and A NJ

SUMMARY

Q and A NJ is New Jersey's virtual reference service. Available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and free to all New Jersey residents, the service provides online reference assistance in real time from librarians across the state. New Jersey was the first state in the country to offer such service. This article looks at the history of the service, what it's like to be a virtual librarian, and presents a brief survey of the librarians participating in Q and A NJ.     

Selling the Library from the Reference Desk

Abstract

Many library directors and administrators spend a significant portion of their time attempting to market the library and its services. Getting patrons into the library and keeping their business is an integral part of the day-to-day management of the library. This mission, however, is not always effectively passed on to the front lines to the one group of people who face the patrons on a daily basis -the reference librarians.

This article will show how the library's service points can be used as marketing tools; outline what librarians and public service staff should know about their library; and discuss ways in which reference service librarians can help further the library's marketing and public relations goals.     

Motivations and uses: Evaluating virtual reference service from the users' perspective

The questions of whether chat reference service is beneficial enough to users to justify the costs of offering it, and how valuable it is to users in fulfilling their information needs, have been primary concerns for librarians providing the service, for library administrators managing the service, and for funding agencies paying for it. The present study combines a traditional evaluation of the user's satisfaction with the reference encounter, with details of the user's information use and the user's motivation for using the chat reference service. This evaluation study assesses the effectiveness of chat reference service in meeting users' information needs.     

An Attitude of Caring

Summary

As reference librarians, our goal with every patron contact should be to go the extra mile, to make patrons stop and realize that they have received service beyond their expectations. Outstanding customer service is not so much a skill to be learned as it is an attitude. It's an attitude of genuine caring for people, a desire to help people to the fullest extent of our capabilities. It's exhibited by those who truly like people-all kinds of people-and who love serving people. Public librarians who do not possess this desire simply don't belong in the public sector of the library.     

Implementing Twitter in a Health Sciences Library

The NYU Health Sciences Libraries created an account on Twitter, a microblogging service, as a new outreach tool marketed to students, faculty, and staff. The team used Twitter to promote resources, events, and news. Twitter is a part of a pipeline of information that also includes the library's Web site and Facebook. Although it is difficult to measure the effectiveness of a social networking tool, the overhead of using Twitter is so low that it merits consideration.     

Thriving in Changing Times:

The sheer power and scope of Internet information services are o~eninet:h e oublic's eve to the volume of information available in akay &at tr&ional 6brary service points have never quite managed Are librarians missing the point in how information options are presented to the public? Do we need to shift ow emphasis on the importance of specific skills and abilities required by front line librarians? Or, do we need to emphatically emphasize service as a primary mission in library services? In addition to basic core competencies, today's reference librarian must be committed to providing superior public service to library clientele and that commitment must be immediately apparent to each user.     

Another Lane on the Information Highway? A Case Study of Experimenting with Text Message Reference

This article examines the process of researching, adapting, and implementing a text message reference service and the conclusions reached after nearly 10 months of continuous service. This experiment involved a single BlackBerry passed in a rotating schedule among librarians to gauge student interest in a text reference service. Although implementing this service allowed the library to be at the technological forefront, this is a service that would be better provided via a software interface. Furthermore, the text message reference service needed a stronger marketing campaign to make students aware of this option.     

Language style matching as a measure of librarian/patron engagement in email reference transactions

In both virtual and in-person reference transactions, creating a supportive environment for patrons is the crucial first step. Evaluating librarians success in creating a supportive environment, however, is challenging. Language style matching (LSM) is a text analysis technique that measures the level of engagement between people. A high level of LSM has been shown to contribute to a sense of perceived support and other positive social outcomes. In this exploratory study, LSM is used to evaluate >1200 email threads from two virtual reference services to determine the level of engagement between patrons and librarians. Results show that email reference provided through the LibAnswers general reference service demonstrated a moderate to high level of LSM 67% of the time and email reference provided by a liaison librarian demonstrated a moderate to high level of LSM 84% of the time. By measuring how well librarians are meeting patrons' affective needs, LSM has the potential to provide a more holistic assessment of virtual reference services.     

Utilizing Text Messages for Effective Outreach

ABSTRACT

As librarians strive to reach students and share reference content, text messages are a new avenue to explore. Although many libraries receive reference questions through text, few initiate the conversation. Sending text messages with video tutorials relevant to class assignments has been an effective and innovative outreach at Bethel University’s College of Professional Studies (CPS). Over three years, we have sent 1,099 text messages and 38% of the video links included were clicked. Students saw the message and clicked the link at a significantly higher rate than links inside e-mail campaigns, as compared to industry standards and CPS’s statistics. Text messages are an effective form of communication because they are prevalent, have a high likelihood of being read, and their content can be easily tailored. Students and the broader academic community do not expect a text from the library and it builds social capital with them. This social capital is a valuable benefit to librarians seeking to demonstrate their relevancy in a competitive information environment. A similar initiative could benefit several areas in an academic library. Personal librarians, first year experience librarians, distance education librarians, or librarians supporting student success could build relationships through this level of individualized contact.     

Mobile phone text messaging use among university librarians of Lahore city

Short Message Service (SMS) has become a cheap and popular source of communication in today's society. The present study examines the mobile phone text messaging patterns of 96 university librarians from 29 public and private universities in Lahore, Pakistan. Data were collected through a survey questionnaire. Results indicate that university librarians use SMS tools, but do not prefer this technology as a means of communication through phone or e-mail. A majority of librarians use SMS to connect with friends/relatives or for entertainment purposes. They rarely use SMS to communicate with library users, professional colleagues, or administration.     

SMS Text Reference Comes of Age: The My Info Quest Collaborative

The advent of the nationwide My Info Quest text message reference collaborative not only helped propel United States libraries' use of telephone text messaging to a new standing, it also demonstrated the effectiveness of a nationwide non-hierarchical librarian collective built on an organic foundation of radical trust. Much of the collaborative's development parallels similarly probing steps taken years earlier by instant messaging reference librarians, albeit with profound organizational differences. This article reports on important contrasts and commonalities with earlier services and describes some of the day-to-day workings of My Info Quest during its 2009–2010 pilot phase.     

Profiles in Resource Sharing: Peter Bae

ABSTRACT

At a large university library, helping patrons use a full text database such as LEXIS-NEXIS places pressure on reference staff because the service is complex. Staff cannot give the proper attention to patrons because activity at the reference desk can limit the time spent with each individual. Full-text services require more instruction and reference help than electronic bibliographic databases, but patrons often come for assistance just before the assignment is due. To relieve such pressure, librarians at Penn State's Pattee Library developed Just-in-Time demonstrations to help patrons learn how to use LEXIS-NEXIS when they need it. The Justin-Time demonstrations provide a weekly alternative which relieves the “I need it now” pressure by providing instruction on a weekly basis. These demonstrations have been well received by patrons and staff.     

An Academic Library Director's Alphabet

This article offers librarians practical insight into a broad range of job-related conditions that affect the academic library director. It discusses the director's professional relationships with employees, colleagues, superiors, and patrons, and it also addresses the director's responsibilities for the quality of library service.     

Understanding our library's laptop users: Defining “need” in a needs-based service

In Fall 2019, librarians at the Marydean Martin Library at Nevada State College (NSC) significantly expanded the library's laptop lending program in response to demand, and conducted a review to answer two key questions regarding the service: Whom did the program serve, and Were there unintentional barriers to service use due to lost or damaged laptop fees? Over 50 % of NSC students are Pell grant recipients, which led library staff to wonder if technology fees presented a barrier to students who otherwise might not have access to computers to complete coursework. To answer these questions and address any equity issues, librarians used usage and survey data to understand the demographics and behaviors around laptop service use, including students' perceptions of fees and their reasons for using or not using the service. The findings revealed that the typical laptop user differed significantly from the average NSC student across several demographics, including Pell status, and that replacement fees were not a deterrent from using the service.     

Religious Studies Encyclopedism: A Recent History

As academic reference librarians, we need to historically situate the reference sources we use within changing scholarly disciplines. Mircea Eliade’s Encyclopedia of Religion, for example, is an important text in religious studies, but it is not a neutral text. Rather, it clearly reflects certain intellectual commitments and discursive strategies that need to be situated within histories of scholarship. Failure on the part of librarians to contextualize the perspectives of a reference source is problematic because it leaves the assumptions of the text unchallenged. More constructively, librarians need to problematize the agendas of reference sources, and make salient their discursive positions.     

Orientation to Reality

Abstract

Reference librarians who are new to an organization need to participate in a systematic orientation program as soon as possible regardless of whether they are experienced or not. A well-planned orientation program helps new librarians provide better and more efficient service for their patrons; and facilitates identification with the organization that they have joined. The need for such orientation programs has no significant relevance to the degree of the librarian's previous experience. Experienced librarians need orientation more than training, though they may also need some training specific to changes in their duties and work location.     

The Evolution of GIS Services within North American Academic Libraries: Documenting Change through the Decades (1995–2016)

This review was conducted to identify articles written about Geographic Information Systems (GIS) services offered in the United States (US) and Canadian university and college libraries. In the early 1990's, the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) GIS Literacy Project, in partnership with Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI), helped enable ARL member libraries to create GIS services within their libraries. By the mid to late 1990's, librarians from academic institutions began to write articles that discussed how their library developed GIS services and the components involved with operating a GIS service. Writing about GIS services in academic libraries continued on into the 2000's and 2010's. This review of the literature will document the areas of staffing, service, technology, and data provision for GIS service units from three decades (1990's, 2000's, and 2010's).