Stepping Stones to Synergy: Social Q&A and Virtual
Reference [ASIST 2011 Panel]
Marie L. Radford
Rutgers University
4 Huntington St.
New Brunswick, NJ 08901
mradford@rutgers.edu
Chirag Shah
Rutgers University
4 Huntington St.
New Brunswick, NJ 08901
chirags@rutgers.edu
ABSTRACT
Virtual reference (VR) and social Q&A (SQA), both refer
to some form of information seeking activity using online
Q&A. They are often seen as apples and oranges, but there
is a need to understand their similarities and differences in
order to derive lessons from each side to help the other. The
proposed panel will bring together prominent researchers
from both service types to discuss how we could bridge the
gap between VR and SQA in order to explore unique
opportunities such synergic movement brings forth,
including possible new forms arising from merged
influences of mobile technologies, social media, video
conferencing, and virtual worlds.
Keywords
Virtual reference (VR); Question-answering; Digital
reference; Social question-answering (SQA); Online Q&A,
User studies; Human information seeking.
INTRODUCTION
In recent years we have seen two parallel trends happening
in the information seeking domain. On the one hand,
traditional reference services have gone online as virtual
reference (VR), and on the other hand, more online
searches are being submitted as questions to peers, known
as social Q&A (SQA). While researchers have been very
productive in studying these respective domains, exploring
possibilities for bringing them together to benefit both VR
and SQA, although tantalizing, have yet to materialize.
Fitting with the ASIST 2011 theme, we are proposing a
well-balanced panel that will bring together researchers
from both VR and SQA and engage the audience in
discussing how we could bridge the gap between them to
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ASIST 2011, October 9–13, 2011, New Orleans, LA, USA.
Copyright notice continues right here.
Lorri Mon
Florida State University
142 Collegiate Loop
Tallahassee, FL 32306
lmon@fsu.edu
Rich Gazan
University of Hawaii
1680 East-West Road
Honolulu, HI 96822
gazan@hawaii.edu
create synergetic solutions to better serve library and social
media users in these challenging economic times.
VIRTUAL REFERENCE (VR)
VR encounters between a user and an information
professional, such as a librarian or other service provider,
typically take place in a one-on-one, live chat environment,
similar to Instant Messaging (IM). Other virtual
environments used for reference interactions include email,
instant messaging (IM), Short Message Service (SMS) text
messaging, video conferencing, and virtual worlds, such as
Second Life. On the surface, the reference encounter will be
about locating information and sources to address a
particular information need. However, there is more to VR
interactions than simply finding answers (Connaway &
Radford, 2011). The interpersonal relationship between the
person asking the question and the person trying to provide
the answer can be a complex interaction, made more
complex by the lack of nonverbal cues that are present in
face-to-face encounters (Radford & Connaway, 20052008).
SOCIAL QUESTION-ANSWERING (SQA)
Beyond providing the ability to post, share, and consume
digital content, social media sites let their users connect
with each other through their common interests. This aspect
of such sites is not only a defining characteristic of them,
but also the one that makes them immensely popular,
sustainable, and relevant. These social media sites have
significantly impacted how people seek information online.
SQ&A sites such as Yahoo! Answers, with their millions of
users, provide a way to connect information seekers and
providers with ease. It is, therefore, an opportunity and
responsibility for researchers and professionals to study
these sites and services in order to better understand and
cater to rapidly changing behavior of online information
seeking and sharing (Shah, Oh, & Oh, 2010) as well as to
explore the impacts of these new technologies within the
library world (Mon & Randeree, 2009) and in other cognate
virtual information service areas such as online technical
support, corporate information centers, and e-government
(Bertot, Jaeger, & Grimes, 2010; Grensig-Pophal, 2009).
VR transactions generally rely on a model of anonymous
expertise of the librarian. While communication during VR
transactions need not be impersonal, the relationship
generally begins and ends within one individual transaction.
Conversely, the SQA model allows askers to friend or to
follow one another across many transactions, creating
strong and persistent connections between people who have
found one another helpful or supportive in the past (Gazan,
2011). Should VR librarians consider this approach, and
embrace a more persistent online presence and identity?
This question is addressed in a study of astrobiology
questions submitted to the Answerbag SQA site. As new
extrasolar planets are discovered, and these scientific
findings are distilled and reported in popular media,
questions about the possibility for life elsewhere in the
universe are submitted more frequently to SQA sites. The
patterns of how people ask, answer and interact around
these questions suggest that answers from a known
individual are more frequently viewed and more highly
rated than equally accurate answers from a stranger, that in
the absence of a pre-existing relationship the aggregate
ratings of an individual’s past answers are related to user
satisfaction, and that providing accurate factual information
in an inherently speculative field is not the sole basis upon
which SQA users judge an interaction successful (Harper,
Raban, Rafaeli & Konstan, 2008; Kim & Oh, 2009). These
results suggest that for some topics, VR librarians might
benefit from a hybridized approach to professional practice
that embraces SQA features such as persistent online
identity, aggregate user ratings of past answers, and room
for both factual and conversational interaction.
VR & SQA SYNERGY = PROVOCATIVE POSSIBILITIES
This panel will highlight points of intersection and
divergence in comparing VR to SQA. One important
difference is the basic premise of these approaches, which
can be characterized as “one-to-one” (VR) vs. “one-tomany” (SQA). As in traditional face-to-face reference
encounters, in a VR interaction, a single librarian generally
"owns" the question. It is a one-to-one and generally oneway interaction in which the user asks and a single librarian
answers. In social Q&A settings, it is “one-to-many” in that
anyone can answer the question. A single question can
receive multiple different answers.
A foreshadowing of future trends can be already glimpsed
as forward-looking libraries move toward the "one-tomany" direction such as social media sites (e.g., Facebook,
Twitter), blogs, and wikis. In these environments, it is
becoming possible for one user to ask a question or make a
comment, and receive responses from not only one, but
many librarians, as well as many other users. Challenges
exist for libraries wanting to incorporate more social media
including: insufficient staff members who are
knowledgeable/facile with technologies, staff resistance to
learning/trying new things, information technology
department resistance, administrative resistance, as well as
limited budgetary/human resources and unwillingness to let
go of outdated or underutilized services.
Another difference that can be seen is in user’s expectations
regarding how quickly they expect to receive an answer. In
VR formats (including live chat, SMS text messaging, and
e-mail question answering) there are varying speeds. Users
may be "picked up" immediately in a live chat, may wait in
a chat queue, (Radford & Connaway, 2005-2008) or may
wait for minutes, hours, or days for an email or text
response (Radford & Mon, 2009).
In SQA, speed is king. Answers begin to appear within
minutes (Shah, 2011). The assumption in libraries has been
that users should be willing to wait, and library policy
pages for email have specified a range of from 1 to 3-5
business days to wait for an answer. The “answers within
minutes” model in SQA challenges librarian perceptions
that it is acceptable for slower-speed answers in VR, and
recent research affirms that users highly value convenience
and speed (Connaway, Dickey, & Radford, 2011). A
problem also with the slower-speed answer in the library
world is that users may already have exhausted other
sources such as searching the web, trying SQA, asking
people, and are trying the library in a hurry, or as a last
desperate resort (Radford & Connaway, 2005-2008). The
increasing appearance of library VR SMS text messaging
existing alongside of commercial services suggests a
perception that greater speed is becoming more important.
Expertise is another contrasting element to consider. In VR
interactions between librarian and user, the expertise rests
with the librarian. Users may be asked few questions,
suggesting they have little to contribute. Responses are
considered to be the domain of trained librarians, and there
is often resistance in libraries to the idea of responses
provided by those not considered qualified, as for example,
policies that do not allow library and information graduate
students to fully participate at virtual and physical reference
desks.
In SQA, the definition of expertise is much more open.
Anyone can answer. A health related question might be
answered by a health or medical practitioner, but it also
might be answered by a fellow patient, or a person who was
a caretaker for a sick individual, and each of these
perspectives on the answer might be considered a different
type of expertise. Will libraries begin to adopt a different
definition of expertise, opening up questions to communal
answering? There is some suggestion of a movement
toward hiring Ph.D.s in academic libraries, for example
(Oder, 2003). What about models of having a wider world
of expert referrals to draw upon? Research in libraries has
shown in general a reluctance to let go of questions and
refer them to other libraries (Radford & Connaway, 20052008). In social media, such as on a library's Facebook
page, there are settings for controlling whether you can see
comments from others, and whether others can respond or
post on the wall. One aspect of moving toward a greater
openness to others answering questions is simply in
opening up those settings on Facebook to allow the postings
to start.
The points of contrast and comparison discussed here
provide a flavor of some of the areas that the panelists will
touch on, opening provocative spaces to address
possibilities for convergence.
PANEL FORMAT
The panel will be formatted as an interactive session,
providing ample opportunity for audience members to join
the discussion and to offer ideas and critique of the ideas
presented including physical (i.e., question and answer
session) and virtual (i.e., Twitter wrangler) opportunities.
Marie Radford will act as Chair and facilitator for the
session.
DISCUSSION POINTS
The panelists will engage the audience in discussing the
following points.
What are expectations and motivations for people using VR
and SQA?
In what ways do VR and SQA services compete with or
complement each other?
What can VR learn from SQA? What can SQA learn from
VR?
How are libraries and other information services already
moving toward incorporating social media technologies in
VR, and which are most likely to be successfully used?
Will libraries and other information services begin to adopt
new definitions of expertise, opening up questions to
communal answering?
If we were to create the best of both worlds, what would it
look like?
Marie L. Radford will open the session with a brief
overview of VR and SQA research. She will discuss serious
issues of sustainability in VR, as well as technological
developments in social media that are driving new research
initiatives to consider crowd sourcing and ways to harness
distributed subject expertise in VR librarians. Chirag Shah
will discuss some of the differences and similarities with
various VR and SQA services to shed some light on the
lessons that could be learned from VR to SQA and vice
versa. Lorri Mon will provide an overview of research on
trends in adopting and integrating social Q&A features and
new technologies in libraries and other information
services. Rich Gazan will summarize current SQA research
and describe a case study of astrobiology questions
submitted to an SQA site, illustrating how some of the
unique characteristics and affordances of SQA can benefit
VR services, and inform future design.
ORGANIZERS
Marie L. Radford, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor at
Rutgers University’s School of Communication &
Information. Her research interests include interpersonal
communication in reference and information services (both
traditional and virtual), and cultural studies. She is Co-PI of
“Seeking Synchronicity: Evaluating Virtual Reference
Services from User, Non-User, and Librarian Perspectives”
(Radford & Connaway, 2005-2008) funded by IMLS,
Rutgers, and OCLC. Her latest co-authored books include
Reference Renaissance: Current & Future Trends (NealSchuman 2010) and Conducting the Reference Interview,
2nd ed. (Neal-Schuman, 2009). She is the 2010 recipient of
the Mudge Award for distinguished contributions to
reference librarianship given by the American Library
Association, Reference and User Services Association.
Chirag Shah, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor in the Dept. of
Library & Information Science (LIS) within the School of
Communication & Information (SC&I) at Rutgers. His
research interests include various aspects of interactive
information retrieval/seeking, especially in the context of
online social networks and collaborations, contextual
information mining, and applications of social media
services for exploring critical socio-political issues. He is
also interested in various theoretical and practical aspects of
information as a thing, and online information propagation.
He has been working in the field of social Q&A for several
years, and has produced many substantial contributions and
recognitions, including a recent award from OCLC/ALISE
for studying modalities, motivations, and methods for
online Q&A.
Lorri Mon, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor in the College of
Communication and Information at Florida State
University. Her research has explores virtual reference and
social media in libraries as well as online information
seeking and question-answering in e-government. She has
been a co-investigator in an IMLS grant on IPL2: the
Internet Public Library on education for digital and virtual
reference, and received the ASIS&T SIG-USE Elfreda
Chatman award in 2007 for research on question-answering
by librarians and educators in an avatar-mediated virtual
world setting.
Rich Gazan, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor in the
Department of Information and Computer Sciences and the
Library and Information Science Program at the University
of Hawaii. His research interests include how people
integrate information from diverse sources, from informal
environments such as social Q&A sites to interdisciplinary
scientific collaborations. He is a Co-Investigator on a
NASA Astrobiology Institute grant “Water and Habitable
Worlds,” and works with scientists from various disciplines
engaged in the study of life beyond earth.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Some of this material is based upon work supported by the
following: the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration through the NASA Astrobiology Institute
under Cooperative Agreement No. NNA08DA77A issued
through the Office of Space Science, OCLC/ALISE Library
& Information Science Research Grant, the Seeking
Synchronicity project funded by IMLS, Rutgers University,
and OCLC, Inc., and the Information Use Management &
Policy Institute at the Florida State University.
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