LlyfrgellyddIt’s Welsh for librarian.

David Lee King recently posted an entry called Ask-A-Librarian Services Need A Reboot, in which he suggests that libraries are discriminating against e-mail and chat library users because we may take longer to answer those types of questions.

I think there are some valid reasons why we take longer to answer e-mail questions – valid reasons that do NOT involve discrimination.

For one, it takes longer to explain than to show (this is true of chat as well). It may take me 5 minutes to click and show a person how to set up her interlibrary loan account – whereas it might take me 15 minutes to write and explain how to do the same thing. I say this even relying on shortcuts – I try to cut and paste from similar e-mails, and even so, I have to take the time to customize the answer to that person’s particular need.

Furthermore, it may take longer to answer an e-mail question because you have no verbal or non-verbal cues to go from. I generally avoid writing to the patron with a clarifying question, because I am trying to get the patron an answer as quickly as possible, and I am not sure if she will even respond to that question. So, in order to make the answer as useful (and quick) as possible, I often assume the patron has no familiarity with that resource. I may end up explaining more to an e-mail patron, simply because I can’t ask her if she’s used a certain database before, or what-have-you.

Staffing is also an issue. Many libraries do not have – and cannot afford – to separately staff virtual reference services separately from their main reference services. At my current place of work, one of my chat shifts is during my reference desk shift; people staffing the reference desk are also expected to answer e-mail. I have often had reference shifts that have kept me busy enough that I have had to ask chat patrons to hold on (since I was helping another patron, in person, first). Sometimes, while helping an in-person patron, I have missed seeing a chat patron until it was too late and she has logged off. I have also had reference shifts that were so busy that I could not check the reference e-mail account, or was interrupted repeatedly in the course of trying to answer an e-mail question.

Perhaps most libraries would like to have separate staffing for their virtual reference services, but where will the funding for that come from, in this economy?

Thoughts?