Last Friday, my digital reference class met upstairs in the computer classroom for synchronous (chat) reference practice. I'd done asynchronous (email) reference previously but was unprepared for chat reference, other than what Lydia (the instructor) had said about it in class. This was to be our practice session. Half of us were librarians and the other half patrons, asking and answering questions, with a switch halfway through in order to see the other side.
So I sat down and logged in at a computer, and Lydia came around and assigned me to be a librarian. I brought up QuestionPoint and started trying to figure out the interface and answer questions. There was a little silence in the classroom, and suddenly, all at once, all the librarians screamed Aaaaaaaahhhhhh!!!
I was trying to get comfortable with the interface, which wasn't great, but one of the most stressful things was that I had no idea what the question was before committing to answering it. Once I was in the chat session, I had to try to answer the question, even if I had no idea how to approach it or what to say. I also felt that I had to be doing or saying something at all times, and that the patron would get bored and go away if I didn't. There was a lot of pressure and panic, and I don't think I answered the first questions very well, though I got better.
Once I was on the patron end, however, life was great! I could just sit back, ask my question, and tell the librarian whether the stuff she found was useful or not. She ended up pushing my webpages so fast that I could hardly keep up! After seeing that end of the interaction, I think I will feel much less pressure to keep up a constant dialogue with a patron. Yes, I want to conduct an interview, apprise him of my search process, and send URLs, but it's okay if I let a couple of minutes lapse between messages.
This morning we talked over some chat transcripts and got a better handle on what went well and what we should have done better. We also read over the RUSA guidelines for training librarians for synchronous digital reference and concluded that they were sorely inadequate. For example, they recommend a minimum of 2 hours of training, with hands-on practice merely suggested
whereas we have already had more than 2 hours of hands-on practice as well as all our in-class discussion, and we're far from ready to do it for real.
Tomorrow we're going back to the lab for more practice. I'm looking forward to it!