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Unit 7: Virtual Reference Services

• Internal and external links to the virtual reference service should be designed to catch the Notes
attention of potential patrons and to clearly communicate the nature of the service.
Service Behaviours
• Virtual reference requires library staff having many of the same communication and
interpersonal skills necessary for other forms of reference. The absence of a physically present
patron and the different modes of communication may call for additional skills, effort, or
training to provide quality service on par with face-to-face reference services.
• Staff should exhibit the professional competencies essential for successful reference and patron
services librarians, as articulated in RUSA’s “Professional Competencies for Reference and
User Services Librarians.”
• Standard guidelines of reference service (such as reference interviewing, exchange of questions
between services, et al.) should prevail.
• Staff should follow interpersonal communication practices that promote effective provision
of reference service, as articulated in the RUSA “Guidelines for Behavioral Performance of
Reference and Information Services Professionals.”
• Staff should be required to demonstrate skills in the effective use of online communication, as
well as demonstrate awareness of the common potential problem areas when conducting
reference interviews online, as compared to the face-to-face reference interview.
• Initial and on-going training should be offered to help staff learn and retain these effective
online behaviours.
• Staff should treat patrons’ and colleagues’ online communication, including stored transcripts
or records, as private and confidential.
Collaborative Virtual Reference
• Some libraries may choose to provide virtual reference services collaboratively with other
libraries, for various reasons including: to extend their hours of operation, to distribute staffing
of the service across multiple libraries, to extend the expertise available, or to realize cost
saving associated with economies of scale. Such collaboration may include working with virtual
reference vendors, and/or participation in large regional or national collaborations.
• Expectations for libraries participating in a collaborative service should be clearly defined
before the local library commits to such a service.
• Responsibility for centrally administering and coordinating the service should be clearly
defined.
• Each library should have a project liaison to represent the library in the group’s activities.
Expectations for project liaison’s duties should be clearly stated.
• Procedures for communications between and among participants should be clearly delineated.
• Participating libraries should commit to a prescribed minimum level of service. For
synchronous virtual reference, this level of service should be a set minimum number of service
hours, based upon factors such as size of library or staff, patron population being served,
budget, and extent of online reference service desired. For asynchronous virtual reference,
this level of service should be a prescribed minimum number of questions to be handled or
monitoring of the queue for specific blocks of time.
• Scheduling of libraries’ contributions to the service should be centrally administered. For
synchronous virtual reference, each library should commit to specific blocks of time. Finding
specific reference staff to fill these blocks of time should be the responsibility of the local
library, and not that of the project director. For asynchronous virtual reference, participating
libraries should commit to monitoring question queues for incoming questions in specific
blocks of time.

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