Instruction in Online Chats between Academic Reference Librarians and Patrons

• In Event: Online Chat Interaction

Abstract

We consider ways that academic reference librarians perform instruction when patrons produce underspecified requests in online chats. Patrons often use self-oriented declarative reports to make service requests when they are unable to adequately specify requests and to indicate possible face concerns associated with the production of the request. Librarians mitigate face concerns and engage in instructional work by producing a response that implies what the patron’s question could have been in the first place.

Authors

• Alan Zemel, Drexel University

• Terrence Epperson, College of New Jersey