Virtual Reference Best Practices: Working with Persistent Patrons

From time to time I am involved in a discussion with colleagues about various types of patrons we work with in our virtual reference services. It doesn’t matter if it is a public library patron or an academic library patron, every now and then librarians struggle to provide excellent service. Sometimes the patron is abusive or rude, sometimes we are flooded with questions from a classroom, sometimes we are a bit baffled by the conversation, and sometimes it feels like déjà vu – the patron has come in to chat multiple times with the same question making several different librarians (unknowingly) repeat steps of research that have already been conveyed to the patron. We want to help these patrons, but we struggle with how best to serve them. Throughout the years that virtual reference services have existed librarians have shared their experiences, and best practices have been built around successful, and not-so-successful, exchanges. In my own experience, I have learned more from the good examples than the less stellar examples and I think that can be said of most librarians – we learn from the positive better than from the negative. With AskMN, the cooperative virtual reference service for Minnesota libraries, we are part of the larger QuestionPoint 24/7 Reference Cooperative with libraries participating from across the United States as well as the United Kingdom. Being part of this larger cooperative of libraries allows us to share our experiences easily and also give other librarians a heads up when we do experience persistent patrons coming in with the same question. A persistent patron is identified as a single user that has entered chat multiple times with the same or similar question, despite receiving answers from librarians in previous sessions, typically originating from the same location or IP address but not necessarily. When librarians first started experiencing persistent patrons, librarians focused on trying to stop the conversation and make the patron go away. It was thought the patron was deliberately trying to waste the librarian’s time or they were just bored. Several versions of scripts (pre-scripted messages sent to patrons during a chat session used to shorten keystrokes and time) were created similar to this:

“Thank you for using our service, we’ve noticed you have been on numerous times with the same question, and staff have provided what we can to help with that.”

The purpose was to be polite but firmly set boundaries for use of the service. While we still use these scripts when needed, librarians have shifted away from trying to stop these patrons from abusing or misusing the service to finding out what we can do to help them. It does seem that when we as librarians can get patrons to open up a bit simply by asking a few questions, then we can more quickly connect them with the information and resources they want or need. In one instance, a patron was repeatedly asking the same question (with several typos) in an academic chat. The librarians were having a difficult time trying to understand what exactly he needed:

Librarian: [Patron name], I see you typed: i need to know morf aboutg how to bedcome involvzedaz Librarian: It looks like the computer decided to chew up the last part of your question… would you mind retyping your full question here again. Thanks! Patron: i used a prpgram at [library] this AZM .ik tg was caled thed history of science.hbo c an i bedco med inv olvedd with it? Librarian: Let me see if I am understanding correctly… Another librarian showed you a resource called something like The History of Science… and you need to reconnect to it? Patron: notgt now coulsd u tell me hopw to acccess it by comp

The librarian was able to continue the conversation, and the patron told them he was 67, used a wheelchair, and that using the computer keyboard was challenging. But this patron had asked several subsequent versions of the chat in which he wanted help finding the History of Science program at that library. Through the course of these chats, the librarians were able to determine that he used “program” to refer to websites and finally able to identify the correct resource he was trying to access which was a professor’s course materials page at a different academic institution (an online course partnered through their institution). In another instance, a K-12 student came into a public library’s chat service repeatedly with the same question (using all caps he would reveal that he was looking for a large print book from Babysitter’s Club), and took an average of 45 minutes for each session. Every time he came on he asked for the same book, and the chatting librarian took lots of time and care to help him. After a few months of repeated use, they slowly discovered that he was developmentally disabled, and it was clear he had sight problems as he always requested the librarian to type in all caps. When the student identified that he was a high school student, a librarian asked if it would be ok to contact his school (teacher or principal) and assured him that they wanted to see if there was a way to get him the book he wanted as well as figure out what more they could do. He was okay with contacting the school. The librarian called the principal and let her know that they have enjoyed the student on their library online service and explained how he was unintentionally misusing it but that they wanted to work with her and him to figure out a workable solution. The principal was very gracious and saw this as an opportunity to help him learn how to work with libraries. The student has since graduated and moved on. In similar situations from other institutions, when the librarians were able to work together to review transcripts, they were able to better identify patron needs. It’s ideal to be able to find out what the cause of the situation is, but that’s not always possible. If a patron’s underlying need is to have someone to talk to, there are resources and suggestions libraries can give them. The challenge is to find out what their real need is.