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

[Hillary Theyer]

Has anyone considered the reference services built around e-mail?
KidsConnect answers homework questions for kids with a promised two-day
turnaround.  I volunteer, and it is a wonderful service!  Internet Public
Library also answers reference questions by e-mail, and has helped me with
absolute stumpers in the past.

Hillary Theyer




At 05:44 PM 1/26/99 -0800, you wrote:
>Perhaps you need to turn the question around and ask WHY WOULD ANYONE USE
>E-MAIL FOR REFERENCE?  It involves waiting for a response that you don't
>know when it will arrive.  There is no real personal interaction.  We supply
>a link for reference questions but get very few.
>
>Bill Drew
>drewwe at morrisville.edu
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: web4lib at webjunction.org
>> [mailto:web4lib at webjunction.org]On Behalf Of Sloan, Bernie
>> Sent: Tuesday, January 26, 1999 7:34 PM
>> To: Multiple recipients of list
>> Subject: [WEB4LIB] Why don't people use e-mail reference?
>>
>>
>>
>> (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
>>
>>
>
>