Building skills F2F – Using chat reference techniques

Authors

Darcy C. Del Bosque, University of Nevada, Las VegasFollow
Kimberly Chapman, University of Texas at San AntonioFollow

Document Type

Conference Proceeding

Publication Date

10-14-2005

Publication Title

Brick and Click Libraries: An Academic Library Symposium

Publisher

Northwest Missouri State University

First page number:

24

Last page number:

31

Abstract

The UTSA Library, like many organizations, has been experiencing a period of rapid growth and change. Even positive change can cause stress in departments, and one way to help employees deal with change, while still providing customer-oriented service, is to establish a regular forum for discussion that encourages departmental communication.

Training is an important aspect of employee development; however, the literature indicates that, in many organizations, training is often given little attention and relegated to the sidelines due to other demands on staff. With the hiring of new personnel, including a new Head of Reference and a Training Coordinator, the UTSA Library’s weekly meetings model was expanded to include more systematic training, including special events such as summer workshops.

UTSA librarians provided training in-house, worked with vendors, and collaborated with librarians at other institutions to provide a variety of training sessions to Reference staff. This paper illustrates the training process by providing an overview of training offered to the UTSA Library Reference staff. To compare their training program with those at other libraries, UTSA librarians surveyed other academic libraries in the San Antonio area to determine what types of ongoing training were incorporated into their Reference departments. This paper concludes with recommendations for the future of the UTSA Library’s Reference training program.

Keywords

Communication in organizations; Libraries – Customer services; Library employees – Training of; Organizational change; Reference librarians; Reference services (Libraries)

Disciplines

Communication | Library and Information Science | Science and Technology Studies

Language

English

Comments

Symposium held at Northwest Missouri State University, Maryville, MO

Repository Citation

Del Bosque, D. C., Chapman, K. (2005). Building skills F2F – Using chat reference techniques. Brick and Click Libraries: An Academic Library Symposium 24-31. Northwest Missouri State University.
https://digitalscholarship.unlv.edu/lib_articles/53