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Cross-cultural Analysis of E-mail Reference

by Pnina Shachaf, Lokman I. Meho, and Noriko Hara

Available online 14 December 2006

INTRODUCTION

Studies that examined virtual reference and its

potential for collaboration have by and large Today, many libraries in North America, Europe, Australia,

and Asia participate in collaborative virtual reference, exchang-

represented experiences in western

ing questions among members of a consortium.1 Some of these

English-speaking countries. This article reports consortia involve international collaboration among libraries

the results of a three-nation (Israel, Japan, and from different countries to provide direct virtual reference

Lebanon) comparative analysis to bridge this services to end users worldwide. When joining a consortium,

individual libraries reduce their expenses by sharing refer-

research gap. Similarities and differences

ence responsibilities, the cost of software, and marketing

between these countries highlight elements that activities.2

international collaborative initiatives should There are a number of advantages to the consortia model.3

Member libraries staff the desk for only a few hours a week

consider when implementing global virtual

while the rest of the schedule is covered by partner libraries.

reference services. Collaboration with an institution in a different time zone

enables a member library to provide 24/7 real time chat

reference.4 Furthermore, when an individual library addresses

questions for the entire consortium, librarians use their time

more efficiently as they handle questions from multiple

libraries and have a higher number of questions coming in,

rather than waiting for a question to arrive. International

collaborative virtual reference initiatives may further enhance

reference service, not only by expanding hours of coverage but

also by providing access to more subject specialists. In

addition, collaboration enhances the ability to answer ques-

tions regardless of languages of materials requested and

languages of transactions (for example, a question that is

submitted in French at a German library can be answered by a

French library). Collaborations enables consortia to leverage

unique knowledge and skills of librarians despite geographical

limitations. An additional benefit of joining a consortium is the

ease of creation of a shared knowledge base of all the

questions and answers previously asked for re-use in some

Pnina Shachaf is Assistant Professor,

future point in time.

School of Library and Information Science,

The problem with most if not all existing virtual collabo-

Indiana University, Bloomington, USA

rative reference services and studies is that little attention has

********@*******.****;

been given by librarians and scholars to the impact of cultural

Lokman I. Meho is Assistant Professor,

and linguistic differences among countries on these services.

School of Library and Information Science,

As we know, communication patterns are culturally embedded

Indiana University, 1320 East 10th St.,

and are significantly different from one country to another.5

LI 011 Bloomington, IN 47405-3907, USA

The role of the library in society, and user expectations from

*****@*******.****;

library services, vary as well. These are factors that may

Noriko Hara is Assistant Professor,

considerably influence the nature and quality of virtual

School of Library and Information Science,

reference service provided in global collaborations. As such,

Indiana University 1320 E. 10th Street,

it may be unwise to generalize from research on virtual

LI Room 025 Bloomington,

reference services that have been conducted largely in English-

IN 47405-3907, USA

speaking countries.

******@*******.****.

The Journal of Academic Librarianship, Volume 33, Number 2, pages 243 253 March 2007 243

Sweden. In Asia, collaborative examples include: Reference

...little attention has been given by librarians Point in Singapore, the Virtual Reference Desk of the

Shanghai Central Library, and the China Academic Distributed

and scholars to the impact of cultural and

Collaborative Virtual Reference System (CVRS), which is

linguistic differences among countries on these planned to be launched by the end of 2005.12

services. Examples of international collaborative virtual services

include a joint effort between libraries of the Australian

consortium (GAELIC) and a Florida academic library;13

Somerset libraries in the UK with Brisbane City Council

Very few studies have focused on the provision of

Library Service in Australia and Richmond County Public

collaborative online reference services in non-English speaking

Library in South Carolina;14 Chasing the Sun a virtual

countries. This is partially due to the newness of the

reference service between health science libraries in Australia

phenomenon as well as the apparent assumption that findings

and the UK;15 a collaboration among libraries in France,

from English-speaking libraries can be generalized to other

Germany, and Poland; and a collaboration among reference

countries. This study, therefore, attempts to respond to a

librarians at Slavic and East European Library at University of

lacunae in international and comparative Library and Informa-

Illinois at Urbana Champaign, the Jagiellonian University

tion Science research research of virtual reference services

Library in Krakow (Poland), and the Russian National Library

should expand to a more global context.6 The importance of the

in St. Petersburg.16

study is that it describes commonalities and differences in

virtual reference services among several countries that are Issues in International Collaborative Virtual Reference

underrepresented in the literature. The study is also important

International collaborative virtual reference requires librar-

because it identifies challenges that global collaborative virtual

ians to be aware of cultural differences and information

reference services may face upon implementation. Achieving

behavior. However, studies examining the impact of cultural

these goals is significant for designing and implementing more

diversity on information seeking behavior in libraries are

effective and efficient global collaborative virtual reference

scarce.17 Scholars addressed the cultural diversity of users in

services. Our study analyzes, compares, and contrasts asyn-

terms of country of origin and ethnic background and focused

chronous reference transactions from Israel, Japan, and

on the effect of students heterogeneity on information seeking

Lebanon. We (1) identify the types of questions that virtual

behavior, research skills, and library usage.18 Ziming Liu

reference services are receiving in these countries; (2) develop

reported that international students in the United States, who

an international questions taxonomy; and (3) identify methods

were proficient in English and whose home countries are

used by librarians to handle virtual reference questions.

strongly influenced by American culture, encounter fewer

difficulties in using American libraries; this finding was

LITERATURE REVIEW

concurred by Mengxiong Liu.19 Mengxiong Liu and Bernice

Collaborative Virtual Reference Services Redfern found that students success level and English

Successful collaborations, state-wide, national, or interna- proficiency, frequency of library use, and frequency of

reference desk inquiry are positively correlated.20 Lucinda R.

tional, have been reported in the library literature. The

largest collaborative virtual reference service today is Zoe and Diane DiMartino reported that East Asian students

QuestionPoint, a joint effort by OCLC and the Library of request more assistance in searching full-text databases than

native English speakers.21 In short, studies have found that

Congress that is based on the Collaborative Digital

Reference Service (CDRS). When CDRS was launched in students from different countries have different perceptions and

2000, the Library of Congress and fifteen partner libraries exhibit different use patterns of the library. Barriers to effective

were involved;7 by the end of 2004 more than 1,500 communication in the library include language, conceptual

awareness of library services, and philosophy of education.22

libraries in twenty countries were participating in Ques-

tionPoint. QuestionPoint interface is now available in ten Investigators have reported major differences in how

libraries are used and perceived in different countries.23

languages, supporting the provision of virtual reference

services. Using QuestionPoint involves costs and benefits Librarians in North America are challenged to provide services

for international virtual reference partnerships.8 and library instructions to international students. One source of

In addition to QuestionPoint, many state-wide consortia in this difficulty is that many Asian students have no concept of

the United States and nation-wide consortia in other countries reference services and view the library as a place to store

required texts.24 Small cities and towns in many countries have

provide virtual reference. These include, for example, in the

United States: AskColorado,9 the Metropolitan Cooperative no libraries at all. Censorship, restrictive lending policies,

closed stacks, and service expectations vary tremendously.25

Library System (MCLS) in California, QuadANJ in New-

Jersey, Maryland AskUsNow!, Ohio s KnowItNow24x7, and For example, in Japanese schools the library is a study hall and

a library clerk is in charge of the room.26 Japanese students use

Washington state s Virtual Reference Service, to name a few.

Similarly, national collaborative virtual reference services exist the library mainly for ready reference questions; they rarely use

in Australia-AskNow!,10 and in the United Kingdom-Ask a it for research although some academic libraries in Japan (e.g.,

Librarian.11 Other European collaborative examples are: the Keio University library) offer active reference services. Yoshi

Biblioteksvagten in Denmark, Ask a librarian in Finland, Hendricks claims that due to the lack of attention to reference

Die Deutsche Internetbibliothek in Germany, Lapponica services in Asian countries in general, international students

from these countries rarely ask reference questions.27

Information Service in Lapland, Al@din in the Nether-

lands, Pregunte, Las Bibliotecas responden and La Another critical component to international collaborative

Biblioteca Responde in Spain, and Fr3ga biblioteket in virtual reference is the need for an interface in multiple

244 The Journal of Academic Librarianship

languages. Providing reference services in multiple languages ship (closed stacks and departmental collections and services),

reaches out to diverse user groups and helps them seek continued to serve as an academic and national library (Beth

information on their own turf.28 The need to provide bilingual Hasfarim Haleumi ), as well as the library for the Jewish

reference services and the challenges that an individual library people worldwide. In 2003 the national library and the

faces when trying to establish this service have led Tutor.com Hebrew University libraries became two independent institu-

to develop Bilingual Librarians by Request, a subscription tions. During the early years, most of the librarians at the

service that provides library customers with online access to Hebrew University were trained on the job and their role was

Spanish-speaking reference librarians. Table 1 lists efforts to perceived to be mainly clerical. This changed with the

provide chat virtual reference services in languages other than establishment of the first graduate library school in Israel at

English.29 the Hebrew University. Two other graduate library schools

With the aforementioned issues in mind, this study makes an were later established: Bar Ilan University (also offers an

undergraduate library diploma) and the University of Haifa.33

effort to identify similarities and differences among virtual

reference services in three countries (Israel, Japan, and All three library schools were highly influenced by American

Lebanon) in order to help in the planning and implementation librarianship and library education (open shelves and active

of international collaborative virtual reference services. In reference and instruction services). Sever and Sever and

particular, this study focuses on answering the following Sidorsky Dov discuss the history of libraries and library

research question: What information about users, librarians, education in Israel, and a description of its national, academic,

public, school, and special libraries.34

and libraries should global collaborative virtual reference

initiatives consider in order to provide effective reference The University of Haifa, whose library s virtual reference

services? service is examined here, was founded during the 1960s as a

branch of the Hebrew University and later became an

METHODOLOGY independent university. The University has six main faculties

The objective of this study was to identify similarities and (Humanities, Social Sciences, Law, Science and Science

differences among three countries and discover elements that Education, Social Welfare and Health Studies, and Educa-

international collaborative initiatives should consider when tion), and a Graduate School of Business. The University of

implementing global virtual reference services. Virtual refer- Haifa is the only liberal arts university in northern Israel and

ence service in this study refers to e-mail reference through a home to the most diverse student population in the country; it

mailto link or a Web form that users can fill out where an has a heterogeneous student body of approximately 15,000

indication has been made that users can ask reference undergraduate (66 percent) and graduate students (34

questions.30 We examined recent e-mail reference transactions percent).

in university libraries in Israel, Japan, and Lebanon: University The university library is considered one of the leading

of Haifa, Keio University, and the American University of libraries in Israel. The library collection includes two million

Beirut, respectively.31 This section describes the setting of these items. It maintains about 11,000 active journal subscriptions

libraries, explains the data collection, and discusses the content and 22,000 journal titles in various formats. Hebrew language

analysis method that was applied to analyze the reference periodicals include approximately 3,300 titles. The library has

transactions. access to the full text of thousands of periodicals and hundreds

of databases.

University of Haifa

The reference department handles more than 300 reference

Academic libraries in Israel go as far back as the 1920s requests daily and provides over a hundred sessions of group

with the establishment of Hebrew University.32 Since then, its instruction per semester. The virtual reference service began in

library, which was influenced with German style of librarian- 1998 as an e-mail service dedicated for faculty members, and

since 2000 it became available through a Web form for the

University of Haifa students, faculty, and staff. The library

reports an average of two e-mail questions per day that are

Table 1

handled by one librarian.

Virtual Reference Services in non-English Languages

Keio University

Language Service

Historically, libraries in Japan originated as collections of

Spanish Informatcion en vivo! (New York Public Library)

books. Currently all universities have campus libraries and are

Q and A Cafe (San Francisco area)

regulated under different rules based on the type of universities

(e.g., private or public). According to a report from the Ministry

Library of Congress (Spanish and Portuguese)

of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, on

AskColorado

average, there are 1.9 libraries per university.35 Although certain

24/7 Reference service limitations exist, almost all libraries in Japan are open to the

public. For example, unaffiliated students and faculty members

Swedish Net University (Sweden)

can use any academic library in the country if they have a letter

Catalan Universitat de Lleida (Spain)

from their own library system.36

Chinese Public libraries of Suffolk County (New York) As far as library education is concerned 296 universities

and colleges have been reported to be offering library

French Centre regional de services aux

certificate programs.37 Undergraduate students pursuing a

bibliotheques publiques (Quebec)

library certificate are required to complete twenty credit

New Brunswick Public Library (Canada)

hours of coursework in librarianship; this certificate is

March 2007 245

required only for individuals interested in working in public nursing, and social sciences. The language of instruction is

libraries but is optional for those interested in working in English.

other types of libraries. Ueda et al. also report that eight AUB libraries hold over 600,000 volumes, growing at a rate

universities provide graduate level education in Library and of 11,000 volumes annually. They subscribe to 2,600 period-

Information Science. Of these eight universities, Keio icals, of which 200 are in Arabic, and provide access to

University, Tokyo University, Kyoto University, University approximately 16,000 full-text electronic journals in over

of Tsukuba, and Aichi Shukutoku University offer doctoral ninety periodical databases. The libraries serve a population

programs in the field. of approximately 5800 undergraduate and 1,500 graduate

Keio University, whose library s virtual reference service is students (51.5 percent male and 48.5 percent female) from

examined here, was founded in 1858 and is Japan s oldest sixty-eight different countries and 400 full-time faculty

private higher education institution. It is a comprehensive members, most of whom hold their doctorates from the United

academic university with five major campuses in the Tokyo States. The libraries are open 90 hours per week. Researchers

area: Mita, Hiyoshi, Yagami, Fujisawa, and Shinanomachi. from all over the world use AUB libraries for their unique, rich,

Nine major academic units offer undergraduate, master s, and and historical collections, particularly on Lebanon and the

Ph.D. degrees and a wide range of academic disciplines, Middle East.

including business administration, science and technology, Like many other libraries in the Arab world, most of the

medicine, and law. Keio s University libraries serve approx- senior staff members at AUB are natives with MLS degrees

from ALA-accredited programs.39 As there is no formal

imately 28,000 undergraduate students, 4,100 graduate stu-

dents, and 1,800 faculty members. training program, new staff members learn by experience. It is

The original university library located in Mita was important to note here that most of the library s processes

founded in 1890. The Old Library, a red-brick Gothic have been automated only as of 1997. Electronic reference

building, was completed in 1912 for the celebration of Keio sources and services are equally new. The reference desk,

University s 50th anniversary. It is an important cultural which is staffed by three librarians and several other support

property and an enduring symbol of the University. Each of staff and student assistants, receives approximately 100

the five campuses has a library which is called Media questions per business day, mostly in person and by

Center. As a whole, media centers (including libraries) are telephone. E-mail reference started in 2000 and currently

considered one of the foremost academic information store- receives approximately four questions per week. Only the

houses in the country. The combined libraries of the Keio professional reference librarians answer e-mail questions,

Media Centers house more than 3.7 million volumes. The which are sent to the library via direct e-mail rather than a

library on Mita campus provides access to approximately Web form.

10,000 print journals, 19,000 electronic journals, 187 data- Data Collection

bases, and 1,627 e-books.

During the winter of 2005, the three libraries were

In 2004, 43,123 reference inquiries were made at five Keio

contacted by the researchers requesting recent e-mail refer-

University Media Centers. The e-mail reference service was

ence transactions for the study. Each library agreed to provide

launched on Mita campus in 1998, and the Web form was

the researchers with the data after personal identifiers [of the

introduced in 2002, to assist Keio University graduate

users and librarians] were removed. Because different libraries

students and full-time faculty members in searches for

provided different numbers of transactions, we used fifty of

information, books, and other materials. On Hiyoshi campus,

the most recent reference transactions provided by each

the e-mail service started in late 2002, and the Web form was

library, all of which were from 2004 to 2005 academic year.

launched in 2003. Eight out of ten reference librarians at Mita

Some transactions involved multiple correspondences

and all three reference librarians at Hiyoshi respond to virtual

between the users and librarians over a period of time; these

reference inquiries. They currently receive five inquiries per

were counted as one reference transaction. Some of the

month.

transactions were incomplete and could not be included (e.g.,

American University of Beirut (AUB) a reference request without the librarian s response and vice

Modern librarianship in Lebanon started in the nineteenth versa). The final sample consisted of forty-five requests from

century with the establishment of libraries serving newly Israel, fifty-one from Japan, and fifty from Lebanon, for a

founded academic institutions. Each library was influenced by total of 146 user requests and answers (ninety-six using a

the national origins of its parent institution. For example, AUB, Web form and fifty via direct e-mail) that were made during

which was established in 1866 (as the Syrian Protestant the 2004 2005 academic year. Of the 146 transactions

College), and the Lebanese American University, founded in examined, three were in Arabic, fifty-one were in English

1924 as Beirut College for Women, were influenced by the (most from Lebanon), forty-two in Hebrew (all from Israel),

American style of librarianship.38 and fifty in Japanese (all from Japan). It should be

AUB, whose library s virtual reference service is examined emphasized again that at Keio University and the University

here, was founded as a private, independent, non-sectarian of Haifa users fill a Web form when asking a reference

institution of higher education, functioning under a charter question whereas at AUB they send a direct e-mail to the

from the State of New York. AUB s main campus is reference staff. In contrast to direct e-mail, a Web-based

comprised of 81 buildings, including a hospital, four libraries, interaction helps librarians collect potentially useful informa-

three museums, and six dormitories, as well as an athletics tion about users and their information requests, such as

field. It offers over 100 undergraduate and graduate degree academic status (e.g., undergraduate, graduate, faculty, staff,

programs in agriculture and food sciences, architecture, arts, librarian), departmental affiliation, language of materials

business, engineering, humanities, health sciences, medicine, requested, and type of materials requested.

246 The Journal of Academic Librarianship

Data Processing and Analysis

Table 2

Content analysis of reference transactions was used to Coding Scheme

uncover key themes and elements and to compare results