Non-expert on the virtual reference desk: Online chat at Lincoln University

Abstract

Academic libraries around New Zealand are embracing online live text chat services as a powerful medium to reach their users. Since launching AskLive on our website in July 2014, the Library, Teaching & Learning team at Lincoln University have answered hundreds of queries spanning topics from referencing lecture notes, to the best local pub on a Wednesday night. Our staffing model of everyone being available to answer questions whenever they're at their desk means that a lot of queries don't go directly to the expert - and that is absolutely fine. This presentation will look into many aspects of the AskLive service at Lincoln University, including statistics about pages it’s accessed from and their influence on usage and topics asked, the effectiveness of an all-for-one staffing model, and how we manage having non-librarians answering reference queries.