Negative closure: Strategies and counter-strategies in the reference transaction

Reference and User Services Quarterly

Volumn 38, Issue 2, 1998, Pages 151-163

  Ross, Catherine Sheldrick ^a   Dewdney, Patricia ^a  

^a NONE

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 0000085925     PISSN: 10949054     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (28)

1. Peter Hernon and Charles R. McClure, "Unobtrusive Reference Testing: The 55 Percent Rule," Library Journal 111 (April 15, 1986): 37-41.
2. "Willingness to return" was first proposed as an indicator for evaluating reference service in Joan C. Durrance, "Reference Success: Does the 55 Percent Rule Tell the Whole Story?" Library Journal 114 (April 15, 1989): 31-36; See Ian Douglas, "Reducing Failures in Reference Service," RQ 28 (Fall 1988): 94 for the argument that the uniformity of the 50 percent to 60 percent success rate is "as much an artifact of the methodology [of getting research confederates to ask a set of previously devised test question in libraries as of] the quality of reference services offered by libraries." Subsequent research has acknowledged the narrowness of accuracy of question-answering as an indicator of reference success and used "Willingness to return" instead, and these studies have also found a 50-60 percent success rate. See Joan Durrance, "Factors That Influence Reference Success: What Makes Questioners Willing to Return?" The Reference Librarian 49/50 (1995): 243-65.
3. "Willingness to return" was first proposed as an indicator for evaluating reference service in Joan C. Durrance, "Reference Success: Does the 55 Percent Rule Tell the Whole Story?" Library Journal 114 (April 15, 1989): 31-36; See Ian Douglas, "Reducing Failures in Reference Service," RQ 28 (Fall 1988): 94 for the argument that the uniformity of the 50 percent to 60 percent success rate is "as much an artifact of the methodology [of getting research confederates to ask a set of previously devised test question in libraries as of] the quality of reference services offered by libraries." Subsequent research has acknowledged the narrowness of accuracy of question-answering as an indicator of reference success and used "Willingness to return" instead, and these studies have also found a 50-60 percent success rate. See Joan Durrance, "Factors That Influence Reference Success: What Makes Questioners Willing to Return?" The Reference Librarian 49/50 (1995): 243-65.
4. "Willingness to return" was first proposed as an indicator for evaluating reference service in Joan C. Durrance, "Reference Success: Does the 55 Percent Rule Tell the Whole Story?" Library Journal 114 (April 15, 1989): 31-36; See Ian Douglas, "Reducing Failures in Reference Service," RQ 28 (Fall 1988): 94 for the argument that the uniformity of the 50 percent to 60 percent success rate is "as much an artifact of the methodology [of getting research confederates to ask a set of previously devised test question in libraries as of] the quality of reference services offered by libraries." Subsequent research has acknowledged the narrowness of accuracy of question-answering as an indicator of reference success and used "Willingness to return" instead, and these studies have also found a 50-60 percent success rate. See Joan Durrance, "Factors That Influence Reference Success: What Makes Questioners Willing to Return?" The Reference Librarian 49/50 (1995): 243-65.
5. Ralph Gers and Lillie J. Seward, "Improving Reference Performance: Results of a Statewide Study," Library Journal 110 (Nov. 1, 1985): 32-35.
6. Marjorie Murfin and Charles Bunge, "Evaluating Reference Service from the Patron Point of View: Some Interim National Survey Results," The Reference Librarian 11 (1984): 175-82.
7. Two successful training programs have been described by Lillie Seward Dyson, "Improving Reference Services: A Maryland Training Program Brings Positive Results," Public Libraries 31 (Sept.-Oct. 1992): 284-89 and by Laura J. Isenstein, "Get Your Reference Staff on the STAR Track," Library Journal (April 15, 1992): 34-37; David A. Tyckoson, "Wrong Questions, Wrong Answers: Behavioral vs. Factual Evaluation of Reference Service," The Reference Librarian 17:38 (1992): 151-73.
8. Two successful training programs have been described by Lillie Seward Dyson, "Improving Reference Services: A Maryland Training Program Brings Positive Results," Public Libraries 31 (Sept.-Oct. 1992): 284-89 and by Laura J. Isenstein, "Get Your Reference Staff on the STAR Track," Library Journal (April 15, 1992): 34-37; David A. Tyckoson, "Wrong Questions, Wrong Answers: Behavioral vs. Factual Evaluation of Reference Service," The Reference Librarian 17:38 (1992): 151-73.
9. Two successful training programs have been described by Lillie Seward Dyson, "Improving Reference Services: A Maryland Training Program Brings Positive Results," Public Libraries 31 (Sept.-Oct. 1992): 284-89 and by Laura J. Isenstein, "Get Your Reference Staff on the STAR Track," Library Journal (April 15, 1992): 34-37; David A. Tyckoson, "Wrong Questions, Wrong Answers: Behavioral vs. Factual Evaluation of Reference Service," The Reference Librarian 17:38 (1992): 151-73.
10. Patricia Dewdney and Catherine Sheldrick Ross, "Flying a Light Aircraft: Reference Service Evaluation from a User's Viewpoint," RQ 34 (Winter 1994): 217-30.
11. The indicator used to measure the success of the reference transaction was the user's answer to the question, "Given the nature of this interaction, if you had the option, would you return to this staff member with another question?" "Yes" responses were coded as successful transactions and "no" and "unsure" responses were coded as unsuccessful transactions. (Dewdney and Ross, "Flying a Light Aircraft," 222.) With the addition of twenty-three new library visit accounts, the success rate remains unchanged, with sixty "yes" responses and forty "no" or "unsure" responses.
12. In almost one-quarter (n = 19) of the seventy-seven library visit transactions, users reported that as soon as they asked their initial question, the library staff started to perform some mysterious activity, without asking any questions or explaining what they were doing. Most often, as here, the silent activity was typing key words from the user's statement into the online catalog.( Dewdney and Ross, 225-26.) With the addition of the twenty-three new visit accounts, this phenomenon was reported in twenty-four out of one hundred cases.
13. Despite the almost universally accepted view that the reference interview is crucial to reference success, the reference interview was conducted in fewer than half of the library visit transactions. Only 45 percent of the seventy-seven library users reported having been asked one or more questions intended to elicit further information about their information need. (Dewdney and Ross, 226.) With the addition of the twenty-three new visit accounts, the proportion of cases in which users reported being asked one or more questions about their information need was slightly higher, at 51 percent.
14. In 42 percent of reported cases, the user received an unmonitored referral and then found little or nothing of use. (Dewdney and Ross, 227.) With the addition of the twenty-three new visit accounts, users reported unmonitored referrals that produced little or nothing of use in 44 percent of the one hundred cases. Reasons for the user's failure to obtain a satisfactory answer varied: the user lacked the skills to locate the recommended source independently or find the answer within the source, even though the information may have been there; the recommended source was missing; or the recommended source was found to be irrelevant, too general, or not recent enough.
15. In 65 percent of our seventy-seven cases, a followup question was either definitely not used or probably not used. In slightly more than 35 percent of cases, the user reported at least one followup question. (Dewdney and Ross, 228.) With the addition of the twenty-three new visit accounts, the percentage of cases in which a user reported at least one followup question was 37 percent. In a similar study, Durrance reported that the followup question was used in only 25 percent of cases observed ("Factors That Influence Reference Success," 254).
16. Durrance, "Factors that Influence Reference Success," 250.
17. The inclusion of the additional twenty-three library visit reports does not change the statistical summaries much. Public library settings still account for approximately 70 percent of cases and academic library settings account for 30 percent.
18. William Miller, "Breaking the Pattern of Reference Work Burnout," The Journal of Academic Librarianship 18 (Nov. 1982): 280.
19. Catherine Sheldrick Ross and Patricia Dewdney, "Best Practices: An Analysis of the Best (and Worst) in Fifty-two Public Library Reference Transactions," Public Libraries (Sept.-Oct. 1994): 261-66.
20. Christopher W. Nolan, "Closing the Reference Interview: Implications for Policy and Practice," RQ 31 (Summer 1992): 513-23.
21. Nolan, 517-18.
22. Durrance's discussion of closure in "Factors That Influence Reference Success" (255-56) uses a broader definition of closure than the one we are using here. She includes both what we have referred to as "negative closure" - behaviors that bring about the end of the transaction, apart from providing an acceptable answer or suggesting verified steps that can reasonably be expected to lead to an acceptable answer - and something that she calls "conditional closure" - referral elsewhere accompanied with a followup question that is an invitation to return. In our analysis, we see the followup question as the opposite of negative closure: its purpose is not to end the reference transaction but to keep the reference transaction alive long enough for a helpful answer to be found.
23. For a theoretical discussion of why reference staff should avoid the direct question, "Why do you want to know?" see Patricia Dewdney and Gillian Michell, "Asking 'Why' Questions in the Reference Interview: A Theoretical Justification," The Library Quarterly 67 (Jan. 1997): 50-71.
24. Durrance, "Factors That Influence Reference Success," 253.
25. For a development of this argument, see Catherine Sheldrick Ross, "How to Find Out What People Really Want to Know," The Reference Librarian 16 (Winter 1986): 19-30.
26. See Catherine Sheldrick Ross and Patricia Dewdney, Communicating Professionally, 2d ed. (New York: Neal-Schuman, 1998), 97.
27. Virginia Massey-Burzio, "Reference Encounters of a Different Kind: A Symposium," The Journal of Academic Librarianship 18 (Nov. 1992): 276-86.
28. Virginia Massey-Burzio, "From the Other Side of the Reference Desk: A Focus Group Study," The Journal of Academic Librarianship 24 (May 1998): 212.