[WEB4LIB] Why don't people use e-mail reference?

[Isabel Danforth]

Are there other statistics that you count?  Such as hits on the web page
being equivalent to total people counts?

Use of online reference materials and online catalog?  how do you compare
those to 'standard ' library statistics.

Isabel


At 04:30 PM 1/26/99 -0800, Sloan, Bernie wrote:
>
>(NOTE: If your library has e-mail reference statistics to share, I'd 
>appreciate getting them).
>
>Over the past two months I've been gathering statistics on e-mail
>reference, posting several requests to several listservs. While I haven't 
>received a high enough response rate to do anything that's statistically 
>significant (I've received responses from eighteen libraries), the responses
>
>do seem to indicate that people only infrequently use e-mail to submit 
>reference questions. 
>
>Of the 18 libraries providing data, well over half (11) averaged less than
>one question per day. Four more libraries averaged between 1 and
>2 questions per day. Two libraries averaged 2 to 3 questions per day.
>Indiana University seems to be the exception to the rule, averaging
>about 20 transactions per day. In other words, 95% of the libraries
>in my admittedly small sample averaged fewer than 3 transactions
>per day, with over half averaging less than 1 transaction per day.
>
>The infrequency of e-mail reference questions is perhaps better
>illustrated by representing e-mail questions as a percentage of
>total reference questions recorded. Five of the 18 libraries
>(3 public and 2 academic) provided me with data for total face-to-face,
>telephone, and e-mail transactions. For the three public libraries,
>face-to-face questions accounted for 76.03% of total reference 
>questions, telephone reference services accounted for 23.6%, and 
>e-mail accounted for only 0.37% of the total! For the two academic 
>libraries, face-to-face accounted for 87.51%, telephone reference 
>accounted for 12.03%, and e-mail accounted for only 0.47%.
>
>So, once again giving the caveat that this is a small, self-selected
>sample, my question is: Why don't people use e-mail reference
>more frequently? With millions of people surfing the Web, and
>millions of people with e-mail accounts, and internet commerce
>logging billions of dollars in sales, etc., why does e-mail reference 
>seem to account for less than one-half of one percent of total 
>reference questions?
>
>I'm interested to hear what people think...
>
>Bernie Sloan
>Senior Library Information Systems Consultant
>University of Illinois Office for Planning & Budgeting
>338 Henry Administration Building
>506 S. Wright Street
>Urbana, IL  61801
>Phone: (217) 333-4895  
>Fax: (217) 333-6355
>Email: bernies at uillinois.edu
>
>
>
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Isabel L. Danforth  Technology Librarian, Wethersfield Public Library
danforth at tiac.net       http://www.wethersfieldlibrary.org
		    Coordinator of Librarians' Online Support Team
		        http://admin.gnacademy.org:8001/~lost/ 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~