Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Using Peers To Shed Light On Service Hours For Librarians, Hector Escobar, Heidi Gauder

Heidi Gauder

Purpose: Public service hours for many academic librarians have changed within the last decade. As reference statistics have declined, so have job descriptions changed. We often hear terms like outreach, liaison work, embedded librarianship, consulting hours, scheduled appointments. etc., for what used to be normal desk hours. With a changing service model, comes accountability. How do institutions account for these new forms of work and duties that have replaced traditional service desk hours? How does this feed into performance or merit review?

The purpose of this short paper is to shed light on the roles of librarians at medium-sized universities, …

Let’S Chat: Assessing Virtual Reference Service For Optimal User Experience, Heidi Gauder, Margaret Barkley

Heidi Gauder

Both librarians and student employees staff our virtual reference service, so ensuring consistent and quality chat transactions is important. Sample transcripts from fall 2014 were evaluated, and a fall 2015 follow-up analysis reviewed service improvement efforts. This poster will highlight how a simple scale can be used to assess virtual reference service.