J_Evidence_2

Townsend-Crow_Article review

Melissa Townsend-Crow

LIBR 230

February 4, 2014

Owens, T. (2014). Communication, face saving, and anxiety at an academic library's virtual reference service. Internet Reference Services Quarterly, 18(2), 139-168.

Summary:  In LIBR 200, we learned about the reference interview and how important it is to do an effective interview with information seekers to determine what information they are really seeking so that we can best assist them. In "Communication, Face Saving, and Anxiety at an Academic Library's Virtual Reference Service," Tammi M. Owens takes the reference interview into the virtual realm and describes ways to make the virtual reference experience more satisfying for patrons.  In this article, "virtual reference" refers primarily to synchronous encounters in real time "chat" or instant message mode. Owens and her colleagues conducted a study to determine if the concept of "face saving" was germane to a more positive outcome in virtual reference situations. According to Owens, "The concept of 'face' and 'saving one’s face' is a key relational technique in Chinese culture" (p 145).  She describes three different types of "face" in the context of Chinese culture, but designates the third, guanxi,  which is primarily applied to business negotiations, as " important in knowledge sharing situations. It is the concept of guanxi, and the act of librarian saving face for the patron, which is vital to the virtual reference encounter" (p 146). Essentially, saving face for the patron makes the encounter, whether virtual or in person, more comfortable and patrons report a positive outcome from comfortable encounters. One of the anticipated outcomes of the study was to find a means to reduce library anxiety. Owens quotes Mellon's 1986 study: 

in the face of library research, 75%–85% of students experienced “fear, confusion, a sense of being overpowered or lost, and a feeling of helplessness and dread.” Mellon attributed this to “the size of the library, . . . [not knowing] where things were located, . .  how to begin, and . . . what to do” (p. 162) (Owens, p 146).

The data for the study was drawn exclusively from virtual reference encounter transcripts at a large university library. The coding of the data involved use of the Warner classification scale:   Level I: Non-resource-based, Level II: Skill-based, Level III: Strategy-based, and Level IV: Consultation (Owens p 148). The transcripts were machine searched for keywords indicating type of query, then hand coded to create a master list of pertinent keywords, and then machine coded using this master list.  Once type of query was determined, then they were further analyzed to determine if the patron was experiencing any anxiety and if so, what level. The means used to determine whether the person seeking  information was suffering from anxiety and if so, to what level, were specific interpersonal communication devices:  deflection, deference, and rapport-building.  Deflection, in this article, was defined as the information seeker's inability or unwillingness to clearly state information needs "because they fear negative emotions that may accompany a profession of ignorance or lack of knowledge" (150). Deference, according to Owens, "was defined as communication including thanks,

polite expressions, apologies, self-deprecation, and a willingness to try the

librarian’s advice or wait for service" (152). Owens describes rapport building strategies as " seeking and offering confirmation, using inclusive or informal language, self-disclosure or self-correction, offering encouragement and empathy, using positive interjections and humor" (154). The study found that, by using language clues such as deflection to detect anxiety, virtual reference librarians can help alleviate that anxiety and create a more positive outcome for virtual reference encounters by building on mutual deference and using rapport building strategies to put patrons at ease and assist them to satisfy their information needs.

Evaluation:  The article is of interest for those who work in virtual reference. As Owens says in the introduction, today's university students are more comfortable with electronic communication versus face to face communication and, as a result of this, are more likely to seek reference through electronic means, such as a synchronous electronic encounter with a librarian. Because of this higher comfort level with electronic communication, it is important for the librarian to know the strategies described in this study. The article clearly states the goal of the study:   identifying how to have more positive outcomes of virtual reference encounters through reducing the library anxiety of patrons. I am not certain why the author chose to use the Chinese concept of "face" to design or describe the goals of the study, but after her explanation of the concept, it works.  I also found the description of the coding methods to be complex, yet thorough. Although Owens says that the coding was the primary limitation of the study, I find more limitation in that, while the sampling of the data was large, it was not diverse because it came from only one source:  the transcript archive of the university. Perhaps a better sampling might be achieved if transcripts from other university libraries engaged in virtual reference were examined or even, if possible, live sessions were observed. Overall, I found the study to be informative and the findings can applied to not only virtual reference, but also to face to face reference interviews.