Moving reference to the Web

Reference and User Services Quarterly

Volumn 39, Issue 4, 2000, Pages 380-386

  McGlamery, Susan ^a   Coffman, Steve ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 0034195351     PISSN: 10949054     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (17)

1. Samuel Rothstein, "The Development of Reference Services through Academic Traditions, Library Practice and Special Librarianship," citec in "Reference Services and Libraries," Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science, vol. 25 (New York: Marcel Dekker, 1978), 210.
2. Ibid., 211-12.
3. For an example of an excellent subject directory, with accompanying selection guide:, see the Librarians' Index to the Internet, www.lii.org.
4. The MCLS Reference Committee, a consortia of pubC lic libraries in Los Angeles County, conducted a survey entitled "Disembodied Reference" in June, 1998. Of the thirty-one public library jurisdictions in MCLS, twenty-five responded to the survey. Of those, ten libraries provided an e-mail reference service. This survey has not been updated.
5. The AskA service is designed to link students, teachers, parents and other K-12 community members with experts on the Internet. For more information on this service, see www.vrd.org/locator/subject.html.
6. Arguably, e-mail also provides a nonthreatening way to ask embarrassing questions.
7. The Internet affects many industries, sometimes adversely. Jupiter Communications recently reported that more than 80 percent of U.S. online consumers now trust online news as much as they trust newspapers, broadcast television, and cable news outlets. According to the article, these new findings heap pressure on traditional news outlets to fight with the Internet's twenty-four-hour instant newsstand. "How the Web Was Won," Editor & Publisher (May 1999): 38.
8. According to a study conducted by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (Daniel K Orlow and others, Ongoing Restructuring of Retail Banking. Research Payer #9639 [Federal Reserve Bank of New York, 1996]), banks were able to reduce their cost per transaction from $2.57 in a branch, to $1.07 in a bank telephone call center, to a mere $0.10 in a Web contact center. That is a reduction of over 97 percent between a branch bank and the Web. Similar cost advantages have been demonstrated in other industries as well. But more importantly for our patrons and for us, the transition from the branch bank to online banking made banking much easier and more convenient for the customers as well. Banking from home and twenty-four-hour banking, for example, would not have been possible without call centers. For a more detailed analysis of the efficiencies of call centers and how they might work for libraries see, Steve Coffman, "Reference as Others Do It," American Libraries (May 1999): 32, and Steve Coffman and Matthew Saxton, "Staffing the Reference Desk in the Largely-Digital Library," The Reference Librarian 66 (1999): 141; According to a recent survey, there are two main reasons why increasing numbers of consumers are shopping online: it's quick and it's easy. The Shopping 2000 survey was conducted between December 23, 1998 and January 6, 1999 and surveyed thirteen hundred regular Internet users nationwide. "Consumers Cite Convenience as Lure to On-line Shopping," Discount Store News 38 (Apr 19, 1999): 20.
9. According to a study conducted by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (Daniel K Orlow and others, Ongoing Restructuring of Retail Banking. Research Payer #9639 [Federal Reserve Bank of New York, 1996]), banks were able to reduce their cost per transaction from $2.57 in a branch, to $1.07 in a bank telephone call center, to a mere $0.10 in a Web contact center. That is a reduction of over 97 percent between a branch bank and the Web. Similar cost advantages have been demonstrated in other industries as well. But more importantly for our patrons and for us, the transition from the branch bank to online banking made banking much easier and more convenient for the customers as well. Banking from home and twenty-four-hour banking, for example, would not have been possible without call centers. For a more detailed analysis of the efficiencies of call centers and how they might work for libraries see, Steve Coffman, "Reference as Others Do It," American Libraries (May 1999): 32, and Steve Coffman and Matthew Saxton, "Staffing the Reference Desk in the Largely-Digital Library," The Reference Librarian 66 (1999): 141; According to a recent survey, there are two main reasons why increasing numbers of consumers are shopping online: it's quick and it's easy. The Shopping 2000 survey was conducted between December 23, 1998 and January 6, 1999 and surveyed thirteen hundred regular Internet users nationwide. "Consumers Cite Convenience as Lure to On-line Shopping," Discount Store News 38 (Apr 19, 1999): 20.
10. According to a study conducted by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (Daniel K Orlow and others, Ongoing Restructuring of Retail Banking. Research Payer #9639 [Federal Reserve Bank of New York, 1996]), banks were able to reduce their cost per transaction from $2.57 in a branch, to $1.07 in a bank telephone call center, to a mere $0.10 in a Web contact center. That is a reduction of over 97 percent between a branch bank and the Web. Similar cost advantages have been demonstrated in other industries as well. But more importantly for our patrons and for us, the transition from the branch bank to online banking made banking much easier and more convenient for the customers as well. Banking from home and twenty-four-hour banking, for example, would not have been possible without call centers. For a more detailed analysis of the efficiencies of call centers and how they might work for libraries see, Steve Coffman, "Reference as Others Do It," American Libraries (May 1999): 32, and Steve Coffman and Matthew Saxton, "Staffing the Reference Desk in the Largely-Digital Library," The Reference Librarian 66 (1999): 141; According to a recent survey, there are two main reasons why increasing numbers of consumers are shopping online: it's quick and it's easy. The Shopping 2000 survey was conducted between December 23, 1998 and January 6, 1999 and surveyed thirteen hundred regular Internet users nationwide. "Consumers Cite Convenience as Lure to On-line Shopping," Discount Store News 38 (Apr 19, 1999): 20.
11. According to a study conducted by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (Daniel K Orlow and others, Ongoing Restructuring of Retail Banking. Research Payer #9639 [Federal Reserve Bank of New York, 1996]), banks were able to reduce their cost per transaction from $2.57 in a branch, to $1.07 in a bank telephone call center, to a mere $0.10 in a Web contact center. That is a reduction of over 97 percent between a branch bank and the Web. Similar cost advantages have been demonstrated in other industries as well. But more importantly for our patrons and for us, the transition from the branch bank to online banking made banking much easier and more convenient for the customers as well. Banking from home and twenty-four-hour banking, for example, would not have been possible without call centers. For a more detailed analysis of the efficiencies of call centers and how they might work for libraries see, Steve Coffman, "Reference as Others Do It," American Libraries (May 1999): 32, and Steve Coffman and Matthew Saxton, "Staffing the Reference Desk in the Largely-Digital Library," The Reference Librarian 66 (1999): 141; According to a recent survey, there are two main reasons why increasing numbers of consumers are shopping online: it's quick and it's easy. The Shopping 2000 survey was conducted between December 23, 1998 and January 6, 1999 and surveyed thirteen hundred regular Internet users nationwide. "Consumers Cite Convenience as Lure to On-line Shopping," Discount Store News 38 (Apr 19, 1999): 20.
12. Of course, the Web site allows the company to provide more information to the customer than an IVR, but this might not necessarily decrease the percentage of customers that seek live help. A press release for Land's End states that "[a]ccording to a recent survey by Jupiter Communications, 90 percent of online customers prefer some form of human interaction during an e-commerce transaction." See also Jeff Sweat, "Human Touch," Informationweek (Oct. 4, 1999): 18-19. In another study, Zona Research found that "62 [percent] of potential Web shoppers abort their transactions in frustration over the process, and other polls have found that more than 80 [percent] of Internet users still have security fears about Web-based transactions. Both of these issues reflect an important aspect that makes shopping in the physical world more comfortable to most people than shopping online: human contact. Despite the conveniences of e-commerce - no long lines and no heavily trafficked parking lots -when it gets down to conducting and confirming transactions, shoppers want to confer with other people." Dan O'Shea, "E-commerce Gets Personal," Telephony (Feb. 15, 1999): 10-12.
13. Of course, the Web site allows the company to provide more information to the customer than an IVR, but this might not necessarily decrease the percentage of customers that seek live help. A press release for Land's End states that "[a]ccording to a recent survey by Jupiter Communications, 90 percent of online customers prefer some form of human interaction during an e-commerce transaction." See also Jeff Sweat, "Human Touch," Informationweek (Oct. 4, 1999): 18-19. In another study, Zona Research found that "62 [percent] of potential Web shoppers abort their transactions in frustration over the process, and other polls have found that more than 80 [percent] of Internet users still have security fears about Web-based transactions. Both of these issues reflect an important aspect that makes shopping in the physical world more comfortable to most people than shopping online: human contact. Despite the conveniences of e-commerce - no long lines and no heavily trafficked parking lots - when it gets down to conducting and confirming transactions, shoppers want to confer with other people." Dan O'Shea, "E-commerce Gets Personal," Telephony (Feb. 15, 1999): 10-12.
14. When we first investigated this field in late summer of 1999, there were more than fifty companies in the market offering some variation of Web contact center software. Most of the software developers are small, start-up companies funded by venture capital. Not surprisingly, this is a highly volatile market, and in the course of our two-and-a-half-month due diligence investigation, many of the companies we looked at were either acquired by a larger company (Cisco, Melita) or went public. Although there are a variety of Web contact center software products, only Webline met all of our criteria. Several days after we decided on Webline, Cisco announced that it was acquiring the company. From our point of view, this assures that the product will continue to be developed, and that other telephony and communications technologies will continue to be integrated with the product.
15. For access to information that requires authentication, such as proprietary databases, the software requires the end-user to authenticate, using whatever means the library has already established, such as a library card.
16. The MCLS Reference Center is a second-level reference center currently funded by the California Library Services Act.
17. This can be done through cobranding, so that each library can place a project-developed Web product on the library's own Web page, modified according to each library's own needs and clientele. Reference &User Services Quarterly, vol. 39, no. 4, pp. 387-90