User satisfaction with referrals at a collaborative virtual reference service

Nahyun Kwon.
Information Research 11(2). (January 2006)

A new study published in Information Research on user satisfaction of referrals via a collaborative virtual reference service finds that:

• Referrals were approximately 30 percent of all transactions.
• In contrast to referrals, completely answered questions were 56.4 percent of transactions, which is very close to the well-known 55 percent reference success rate.
• Circulation questions were the most frequently asked questions, (48.9 percent), followed by subject-based research questions (25.8 percent), simple factual questions (9.6 percent), resource access (8.9 percent) and local library-related information queries (6.8 percent).
• To improve user satisfaction, librarians need to distinguish between two types of referrals: the 'expert research' referrals conducive to collaborative virtual reference services (sharing expertise and resources in answering difficult subject-based research questions); and the 're-directional, local' referrals that increase unnecessary question traffic, thereby being detrimental to effective use of collaborative reference (referring users back to local libraries to resolve circulation questions).

(Via OCLC Abstracts)

Posted by Tom on February 07, 2006