Week 5: REFLECT -- Many libraries provide instant messaging and VoIP reference services, how would you feel about communicating with patrons this way?

The problem with instant messaging (IM) and VoIP reference services is that I believe users have the same service expectation than when they are in person at the library asking a librarian. The issue arises that there is a barrier visually between what a user sees and what a librarian is telling them. Whether it is through miscommunication from the librarian, or misunderstanding with the patron, when the person telling you the steps is not next to you guiding you, there is a distancing in the help they can provide.

What would be ideal for this service to function is a kind of screen sharing program embedded within the library site with the ‘Ask a Librarian’ plugin. Where the patron could see the librarian’s screen and be guided, step by step, on how to use the service. Remote control desktop is a service easily available on Windows PC and (possibly) on Mac, however that’s invasive and a patron would undoubtedly be uncomfortable with the idea of a librarian momentarily wresting the control from them to show which button leads them to search.

With databases like Trove appearing, and even more records, books and other collected and archived data appearing online for libraries, IM and VoIP are becoming integral to libraries, not just as a patron service for helping, but as a way of providing service to connect all communities together to find the information pertinent to them. The Australian equivalent of this is the Australian Libraries Gateway, a “free Web-based directory service which has information about approximately 5,200 Australian libraries and cultural institutions, their collections and services”. Indeed, when Trove was released in 2009 ALG became the leading library “Trove Contributor”.

In essence, these user services mean that a library is moving further away from standardised modes of helping find a reference book and instead being a mediator between the patron and the information highway. As librarians, it is our job to help a patron in finding whatever information they can, and as the world is increasingly going digital, the services used to help patrons with this are digital modes too.