Last night, some of my callers were typing in multiple choice questions. This was a little hard to deal with. You don't want to give them the answer (do their homework) but it's hard to find a way to make them think about what they're reading. Has anyone else had this experience?
Printer-friendly version
That's a tough situation. I
That's a tough situation. I try to send them a page that has the answer without actually telling them the answer is b, or c, or etc...
I tell them the answer is on the page I sent, and all they have to do is read it. If they are insistent I'll tell them what paragraph has the answer. Doesn't always work, but it's worked for me in the past.
There is a fundamental misunderstanding....
by young students about what they can get out of chat reference. Many of them don't see it as a way to find sources....they think we're here to hand them an answer. When I refuse to hand them answers they can get hostile and abusive. I sometimes wonder why we spend so much time and money to offer a service when the positive returns are seemingly so small?
What do patrons expect
We've all had difficult encounters with patrons--online, on the phone, or in person--and I think this happens a lot of the time because some patrons' expectations differ from what it is we're actually offering. And since Virtual Reference is such a relatively new service, patrons are bound to have different expectations, and to test us to see what it is we're actually willing to do.
I try to remember this when I have a patron asking me to basically do his or her homework. I try to give the patron the benefit of the doubt that maybe he or she really doesn't understand that even though the service is called "HomeworkNow," I'm not going to go through a worksheet and provide all the answers.
I try to explain what the service offers and focus on what I actually can do for the patron--find good resources and information that that the patron needs to read. And I think sometimes handing patrons an answer is the right thing to do too--don't we do this with phone ready reference?
If some of you are feeling that there aren't positive returns for providing KnowItNow, then I'm afraid those of us who manage the service haven't done a very good job of letting you know how incredibly successful this service is, what a great job you have been doing, and how pleased patrons are with what you do for them.
According to our patron survey, about 3/4 of our patrons feel that they got the information they wanted; that we found it quicker than they expected; that their librarian was interested in helping them; and that overall, their experience was very good or excellent.
Not only the surveys show how much patrons appreciate KnowItNow--hundreds of patrons send e-mails to KIN librarians thanking them and telling them how much they appreciated the help.
Kristen Pool, KnowItNow AfterDark Project Coordinator