scholarly journals Virtual Racism Rears its Head: Uncovering Librarian Bias in E-mail Reference Services

2007 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 97
Author(s):  
Wendy Furlan

A review of: Shachaf, Pnina, and Sarah Horowitz. "Are Virtual Reference Services Color Blind?" Library & Information Science Research 28.4 (Sept. 2006): 501-20. Abstract Objective – To examine whether librarians provide equitable virtual reference services to diverse user groups. Design – Unobtrusive method of defined scenarios submitted via e-mail. Setting – Twenty-three Association of Research Libraries (ARL) member libraries from across the United States. All ARL member libraries were invited to participate, with the 23 acceptances providing 19% participation. Subjects – Anonymous librarians from the 23 participating libraries’ virtual e-mail reference services. Up to 6 librarians from each library may have been involved. Six fictitious personas were developed to represent particular ethnic or religious groups, whereby the ethnic or religious affiliation was only indicated by the name chosen for each user and the corresponding e-mail address. Names were selected from lists of names or baby names available online: Latoya Johnson (African-American), Rosa Manuz (Hispanic), Chang Su (Asian - Chinese), Mary Anderson (Caucasian/Christian), Ahmed Ibrahim (Muslim), and Moshe Cohen (Caucasian/Jewish). These personas were used to submit reference queries via e-mail to the virtual reference services taking part in the study. Methods – Five different types of reference queries were developed for use in this study. Three were based on prior published research as they were deemed to be answerable by the majority of libraries. They included a dissertation query, a sports team query, and a population query all designed to be tailored to the target institution. The other 2 queries were developed with participating institutions’ virtual reference guidelines in mind, and were thought to not be answered by the target institutions when submitted by unaffiliated users. They consisted of a subject query on a special collection topic that asked for copies of relevant articles to be sent out, and an article query requesting that a copy of a specific article be e-mailed to the patron. The study was conducted over a 6 week period beginning the second week of September, 2005. Each week, 1 fictitious persona was used to e-mail a reference query to the virtual reference service of each of the 23 participating institutions. Five of each type of query were sent by each persona. During September and October 2005, a total of 138 queries were sent. Each institution received a different query for each of the first 5 weeks, and in the sixth week they received a repeat of a previous request with details of title or years altered. All other text in every request sent was kept consistent. Each institution only received 1 request from each persona during the study. In order to eliminate any study bias caused by an informed decision regarding the order in which personas were used, they were randomly arranged (alphabetically by surname). Furthermore, to avoid suspicions from responding librarians, queries were e-mailed on different days of the week at different times. This created some limitations in interpretating response times as some queries were submitted on weekends. All queries were analysed by Nvivo software in order to identify attributes and patterns to aid qualitative analysis. Each transaction (a single query and any related responses) was classified according to 12 attributes and 59 categories based on various associations’ digital reference guidelines. Transactions were coded and then 10% re-coded by a different coder. This led to the clarification and refinement of the coding scheme, resulting in the number of categories used being reduced to 23. Coding was then performed in 3 iterations until 90% agreement between the 2 coders was reached. The final inter-coder reliability was 92%. The study did not support cross tabulation among user groups on most content categories due to the small sample size. Main results – Response times varied greatly between users. Moshe (Caucasian/Jewish) received an average turn-around of less than a day. At the other end of the spectrum, Ahmed’s (Muslim) responses took an average of 3.5 days. Both Ahmed and Latoya (African-American) sent queries which took over 18 days to receive a response. The length (number of words) of replies also indicated a differing level of service with Mary (Caucasian/Christian) and Moshe receiving far lengthier responses than the other 4 personas. Number of replies (including automatic replies) was examined in comparison with the number of replies which answered the question, and again indicated Mary and Moshe were receiving a better level of service. The way in which the user was addressed by the librarian was examined as another measure of service, i.e. first name, full name, honorific. This again mirrored the low level of service received by Ahmed. The professional endings used by librarians in their replies also reinforced the high quality of service received by Moshe across other categories. Results for Rosa (Latino) and Chang (Asian - Chinese) were average for most categories presented. Conclusion – In this study, a discriminatory pattern was clearly evident, with the African-American and Muslim users receiving poor levels of service from virtual reference librarians across all dimensions of quality evaluated. The Caucasian (Christian and Jewish) users also noticeably received the best level of service. It is noted, however, that the sample size of the study is not large enough for generalisations to be drawn and that future, more statistically significant studies are warranted. Many other questions are raised by the study for possible future research into racism exhibited by library staff and services.


2012 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 110
Author(s):  
Giovanna Badia

Abstract Objective – To investigate and compare the nature of e-mail reference services in academic and public libraries outside the United States. Design – Longitudinal comparative study. Setting – A total of 23 academic and public libraries in ten countries: Australia, Belgium, France, Germany, Mexico, the Netherlands, Slovenia, South Africa, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. Subjects – The authors collected reference questions that were e-mailed to the 23 libraries for the weeks of April 3, 2006 and April 7, 2008. Questions were sent from the libraries’ websites to QuestionPoint, a collaborative, online reference service that was used to answer the questions received. Methods – The authors randomly selected 25 questions for each library for the weeks under investigation. If a library did not receive 25 email reference questions that week, then they collected transactions from subsequent weeks until the quota was met or until the end of the month. The authors examined transactions from a total of 919 questions – 515 questions in 2006 and 476 in 2008. All identifying information about the user was stripped from each transaction collected. Each transaction was labeled according to the following categories: • Type of institution, i.e., whether the question was sent to an academic or public library • Language of the question • Question type, i.e., whether the question was about library policy or access to electronic resources (labeled “access” questions), about library holdings (labeled “bibliographic” questions), or about finding specific information on a topic (labeled “subject” questions) • Answer type, i.e., whether the response consisted of: a confirmation, clarification, fact, instructions, referral to a pathfinder/bibliography, referral to another library/person/place, or no answer. • User status, i.e., whether the person asking the question was an undergrad, a graduate student, or a staff/faculty member • Subject classification of the questions using the Dewey Decimal Classification system • Response time Main Results – The e-mail transactions that were examined revealed a wide range of end-user and librarian behaviors. English, followed by Dutch, German, and French, were the languages most frequently used by library users. Countries also varied in terms of the types of questions received. For example, more than 75% of the email queries in Belgium (which only had academic libraries participate in this study) were “access” questions, while Mexico (which also consisted of all academic libraries) only received 6% “access” questions, France (all public libraries) had relatively few access questions, and Sweden (also all public libraries) had none. Public libraries received the most “subject” questions (75%) compared to academic libraries (28%). Public libraries answered “subject” questions with facts over a third of the time, while academic libraries responded with instructions close to half of the time. Among the academic libraries, graduate students asked slightly more “access” questions than undergraduates (62% versus 56%), and undergraduates asked more “subject” questions than graduate students (26% versus 13%). The “subject” questions submitted to academic libraries were divided almost equally among topics in the humanities (36%), the sciences (32%), and the social sciences (32%). This differed from public libraries; the latter received mostly questions about humanities topics (65%). The time taken to respond to users’ reference questions ranged from a few minutes to a few weeks between libraries. Some libraries set the response times on their websites. Those libraries that indicated longer response times on their sites met the users’ expectations more often, up to a maximum of 100 percent of the time. Most of the characteristics of email reference services that are listed above remained consistent from 2006 to 2008. The two areas that changed over two years were the libraries’ response time and the types of questions asked by university students. “Access questions increased (by 14 percent among graduates and by 4 percent among undergraduates), and bibliographic and subject questions decreased in both groups” (p. 364). Response time improved overall from 2006 to 2008. Conclusion – The authors’ analysis of the 919 transactions of e-mail reference questions revealed unique patterns about end-user information seeking behavior and librarians’ responses in academic and public libraries outside the United States and Canada. One of these patterns is that the public libraries participating in the study received the highest percentage of “subject” questions. The authors state that “the pattern of a much higher percentage of subject-related questions in public libraries contrasts with the general virtual reference trend in academic libraries, which shows a much higher percentage of access questions. Since many of the access questions concerned connection problems or logging on to databases, the relatively fewer number may indicate that the arts and humanities disciplines require less database searching and that the users need specific answers instead” (p. 367). The data also revealed significant differences between the types of questions asked by undergraduates versus graduate students. Undergraduates asked two thirds of the subject questions submitted to academic libraries and graduate students asked just over a fourth. The authors assume that this finding indicates that graduate students do more of their own research than undergraduates. The authors were concerned by the increase in the number of access questions posed by undergrads and graduate students from 2006 to 2008. They suggested that websites, databases, and other resources might have become more difficult to use over the years. They also noted that questions in technology almost doubled from 2006 to 2008. One of the patterns that were revealed contradicted the authors’ assumption that libraries with slow response times in 2006 would improve in 2008 as they became more proficient in providing virtual reference services. The majority of libraries in the study improved their turnaround time from 2006 to 2008, but the two slowest libraries took even longer to respond to their users.



2021 ◽  
Vol 82 (3) ◽  
pp. 106
Author(s):  
Marie L. Radford ◽  
Laura Costello ◽  
Kaitlin Montague

In March 2020, academic libraries across the United States closed and sent everyone home, some destined to not reopen for months. University offices closed. Classes were moved online. Suddenly, librarians and staff pivoted to working from home and to all remote services, without time for planning logistics or training. To study the impact of this extraordinary and sweeping transition on virtual reference services (VRS), we conducted a major study of academic library responses to the pandemic that focused on librarian perceptions of how services and relationships with users morphed during this COVID-19 year.Academic librarians rallied to our call, and we collected a total of 300 responses to two longitudinal surveys launched at key points during the pandemic. Data collection focused on two phases in 2020: 1) shutdown and immediate aftermath (mid-March to July), and 2) fall ramp up and into the semester (August to December). Via Zoom, we also interviewed 28 academic librarian leaders (e.g., heads of reference and/or VRS, associate directors for User Services) from September to November. Surveys and interviews centered on adaptations and innovations to reference services, especially VRS and perceptions of changes in user interactions.



2013 ◽  
Vol 115 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-40 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Chazan ◽  
Andrew Brantlinger ◽  
Lawrence M. Clark ◽  
Ann R. Edwards

Background/Context This opening article, like the other articles in this special issue, is situated in scholarship that attempts to understand the racialized nature of mathematics education in the United States and to examine the racial identities of students and teachers in the context of school mathematics. It is designed to respond to the current (mathematics) education policy context that largely ignores teachers’ experiential and cultural knowledge while stressing the importance of teachers’ content knowledge and academic achievement. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study This article presents theoretical perspectives and research questions concerning the knowledge and other resources that African American teachers bring to teaching mathematics, perspectives and questions that are taken up in the five subsequent articles in this special issue. Setting The cases developed in this special issue were developed from observations of the introductory algebra classes of, and interviews with, two well-respected African American teachers in one neighborhood high school in a large urban school district that serves a predominantly African American student population. Research Design This opening article frames two case study papers and two analysis papers that report on findings from a large-scale qualitative study of the racialized identity and instructional approaches of two of the six African American mathematics teachers studied in the Mid-Atlantic Center for Mathematics Teaching and Learning Algebra 1 Case Studies Project. Conclusions/Recommendations Together with the other articles in this special issue, this work contributes to the development of more sophisticated attempts to integrate understandings of race into the work of the mathematics education community. It challenges taken-for-granted notions of the knowledge base and resources needed to be an effective mathematics teacher of African American students in underresourced large urban schools.



Author(s):  
R. David Lankes

Federal agencies in the United States federal government that provide Scientific and Technical Information (STI) face a growing support crisis brought on by the Internet. As these organizations use the Internet to provide increased access to databases and automated resources they are finding more users from the general public are asking more questions. These organizations need to be prepared to support an increasingly diverse user group via the Internet. Projects of the National Library of Education (AskERIC and Virtual Reference Desk) are reviewed and used to raise and discuss issues in supporting STI applications in a government setting. Finally a set of recommendations is presented to help plan digital reference services in this context.



Author(s):  
Lisa A. Lindsay

This chapter considers Vaughan’s first decade in southwestern Nigeria (1855-67) in the context of West Africa’s major developments: warfare, migration, slave trading, missionary Christianity, and colonialism. During the warfare that convulsed the region for much of the nineteenth century, thousands of captives were exported as slaves to the Americas. Others were rescued by the British Navy and landed at Sierra Leone; some of these, along with ex-slaves from Brazil and Cuba, later returned to Yorubaland. Meanwhile, missionaries from Britain and a few from the United States pushed inland. Though Vaughan had come to Yorubaland as a carpenter for American Southern Baptist missionaries, he was living separately from them when he was taken captive during the brutal Ibadan-Ijaye war. He escaped to Abeokuta, where the African American activist Martin Robeson Delany had recently tried to negotiate a settlement for black American immigrants. Vaughan and the other diasporic Africans in Yorubaland may have hoped to fulfill their dreams of freedom in the land of their ancestors, but they found something more complicated. As this chapter shows, freedom as autonomy meant vulnerability, while freedom as safety or prosperity was best achieved through subordination to strong, autocratic rulers, who profited from slavery themselves.



2009 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 152 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elise Cogo

A Review of: Shachaf, Pnina, and Sarah M. Horowitz. “Virtual Reference Service Evaluation: Adherence to RUSA Behavioral Guidelines and IFLA Digital Reference Guidelines.” Library & Information Science Research 30.2 (2008): 122-37. Objectives – This study evaluates the level to which virtual (asynchronous e-mail) reference services adhere to professional guidelines. Specifically, it addresses the following research questions: 1) To what extent do virtual reference services adhere to the American Library Association (ALA) Reference and User Services Association (RUSA) and the International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA) guidelines? 2) How does the level of adherence to RUSA or IFLA guidelines vary based on request type, user name, and institution? 3) Is there a correlation between outcome measures of reference transactions (accuracy, completeness, and satisfaction) and the level of adherence to RUSA or IFLA guidelines? Design – Unobtrusive evaluation of researcher-generated queries. Setting – Fifty-four academic libraries in North America. Subjects – A total of 324 queries were sent to the 54 libraries, with each library receiving six different types of requests from six different user names. Methods – Researchers developed two coding schemes for the guidelines (34 codes and 12 attributes for the RUSA guidelines and 33 codes and 10 attributes for the IFLA guidelines). Each of the six user names used represented an ethnic and/or religious group identity: Mary Anderson (Caucasian, Christian), Moshe Cohen (Caucasian, Jewish), Ahmed Ibrahim (Arab), Latoya Johnson (African American), Rosa Manuz (Hispanic), and Chang Su (Asian). The six request types were designed so that three would be answered (questions 1-3) and three would be out of scope and not answered (questions 4-6). The following queries were sent, individualized for each institution: 1) Dissertation query; 2) Sports team query; 3) Population query; 4) Subject query; 5) Article query; 6) Request for a PDF copy. The 324 queries were uploaded into NVivo 2 software, and all e-mail transactions were coded and analyzed. Main Results – Analysis of the 324 transactions from 54 libraries showed the following results: 1) Low levels of adherence to both sets of guidelines; 2) Varied levels of adherence based on request types and user names on both sets of guidelines; 3) Variation in institutional rank according to different sets of guidelines; 4) No correlation between user satisfaction and adherence to either set of guidelines. Conclusion – This study suggests that higher levels of virtual reference service effectiveness could be achieved by automatically integrating some less observed behaviours (e.g., thank you notes) into replies sent to users and by increasing librarians’ awareness of professional guidelines through training and detailed institutional policies. The authors also suggest that librarians should be aware of their tendencies to react differently to different user groups, and that administrators can facilitate this by providing diversity workshops.



2012 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 71-92
Author(s):  
Christopher C. Barnum ◽  
Sandra A. Quinn ◽  
Nick J. Manrique

This article presents a test of several theoretically informed hypotheses that characterize differences between Whites and African Americans incarcerated in the Iowa prison system. The authors judge differences by comparing inmates’ responses on the Level of Service Inventory–Revised or LSI-R, which is a standardized risk/need assessment instrument used to classify Iowa inmates. The hypotheses are based on ideas found in theories of structural distributive justice, general strain theory (GST), and macro-structural explanations of crime. Iowa is an interesting case study because it ranks near the top in the United States in the proportion of Black to White prisoner disparity. This disparity serves as a lens that sharpens distinctions between the populations. The findings suggest that in comparison to White prisoners, African American inmates have higher total LSI-R scores than White inmates and that prior to incarceration African American prisoners had more difficulty finding work, were more likely to have an official record of violent crime, and were more likely to associate with people who were involved in crime than were White inmates. Additionally, the results suggest that in comparison to White inmates, African American prisoners were more likely to feel that their prison sentences were unfair and to act in ways that were indicative of this. These findings are consistent with explanations found in macro-structural theories of crime as well as concepts found in GST and structural distributive justice theory. The authors briefly discuss the implications of these findings.



2012 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-87
Author(s):  
Lakeyta M. Bonnette ◽  
Sarah M. Gershon ◽  
Precious D. Hall

The inauguration of the United States first Black President has prompted mass discussions of race relations in America. It is often articulated that America is now in a post-racial society. However, the question still remains: does the election of a Black president demonstrate that America is now a “color-blind” society? To answer this question, we rely on data collected by PEW (2007). Our results suggest that white and African Americans differ significantly in the extent to which they express post-racial attitudes. Specifically, we find that whites more commonly express post-racial attitudes, claiming that racism and discrimination are rare, in opposition to African American views. On the other hand, blacks are more likely to believe that discrimination still occurs. We further find that whites' post-racial beliefs are significant determinants of their attitudes towards race-related policies, such as affirmative action.



2010 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 105
Author(s):  
Annie M. Hughes

Objective – To evaluate the quality of academic libraries’ virtual reference services and measure compliance to the Reference & User Services Association’s (RUSA’s) Guidelines for Virtual Reference & User Services. Design – Qualitative research study evaluating virtual reference chat sessions using RUSA’s Guidelines for Virtual Reference & User Services. Setting – Virtual reference environments in public academic libraries in the United States. Subjects – Twenty virtual reference providers from public academic libraries. Methods – Initially researchers selected 1 academic library out of each of the 50 states to evaluate for quality virtual chat reference services, however because of factors including time and availability of virtual chat services to unaffiliated institutions; the sample included only 20 academic libraries. After selecting the 20 academic libraries for evaluation, researchers posed as virtual chat reference patrons using emails and aliases that had no affiliation to any particular institution. Researchers then asked the librarian or library staff a two-part question making sure to leave out any library jargon or anything that would lead the virtual chat reference operator to recognize that they are also affiliated with a library or library school. Using the RUSA Guidelines for Virtual Reference & User Services, researchers then evaluated their virtual chat reference experience for the following: Approachability; Interest; Listening/Inquiring; Searching; Follow-Up; Suggests patron call or visit the library. Main Results – When evaluated for jargon-free websites and overall usability in finding all types of reference services, 80% of the library’s websites were easy to use and jargon free, reflecting overall high usability. Evaluation of library staff’s ability to maintain “word contact” by writing prompts to convey interest in the patron’s question left some room for improvement. Sixty percent of researchers coding their virtual reference experience thought the level of contact was below expected. Information regarding question and answering procedures, question scope, types of answers provided and expected turnaround time for questions was only available in 30% of examined websites. Thirty-five percent of researchers felt that library staff members gathered enough information to answer the question without compromising privacy, however, 25% thought that staff members gathered a very small amount of information on the patron’s need, although privacy never felt compromised. When researchers evaluated the library staff member on their ability to explain how to utilize resources properly, 50% thought the instruction provided was below average. Although 15% believed they received “superior instruction.” Seventy-five percent of the researchers were not asked by a library staff member if the question received an adequate answer, 50% of reference transactions library staff did not consult a librarian or expert, and in 55% of transactions the staff member did not suggest that the patron visit or call the library. Conclusion – While the researchers received some valuable information about the need to improve virtual reference services in academic libraries, there were some flaws in their research. The question they developed was almost too clear and made it difficult for the individual answering the chat reference to adequately perform a reference interview or ask probing questions. It is possible that because researchers carefully planned out their question they set themselves up to create an interaction that would not normally occur in a virtual chat reference environment. Also, because researchers were unable to evaluate what was occurring in the environment surrounding the virtual chat reference providers it was impossible to make a judgment on the speed or length of the interaction. The researchers did come away from the study with results that point to a need to utilize the RUSA guidelines in order to conduct effective reference interviews, maintain appropriate contact with the user when engaging in chat reference, provide instruction and point patrons to quality resources as well as consult an expert on the topic if needed. They surmised that if libraries utilized these guidelines, virtual chat reference services would be improved.



2021 ◽  
Vol 54 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 87-98
Author(s):  
Janko Trupej

The article discusses the reception of the novel and the film Gone with the Wind in serial publications published by Slovenian immigrants in the United States of America. The analysis encompassed relevant articles that appeared in publications with different ideological orientations before the mid-1950s, i.e. until the onset of the modern African American civil rights movement. The reception by Slovenian Americans is compared with the contemporary general reception of the novel and the film in the United States. Taking the historical context into consideration, the article also endeavours to establish the reasons for the differences in the reception.



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