https://journals.ala.org/rusq/article/view/5930/7519
"One of the biggest trends in RA education has been catalyzed by
experimentation with RA online, which has necessitated not only teaching
new skills to readers’ advisors, but also often enlisting new staff to
be trained in RA to provide the service. Many recent conference
presentations—a common form of education for RA practitioners—have
focused on moving RA online, especially on social media.
Despite focused professional attention, this trend is still in early
stages; Burke and Strothmann recently found that although librarians who
have experimented with online RA receive positive feedback from patrons
and improve the quality of their RA service, “libraries that offer
robust online RA services remain a minority,” with only 17.6 percent of
public libraries in their study’s sample having a RA page on their
website. A prominent recent example is the My
Librarian program, launched by the Multnomah County Library after
extended research, a successful initiative to bridge the gap between
online patrons and readers’ advisors.
House writes that “My Librarian
takes a big step toward humanizing the online library experience.”
MCL is a system with a strong commitment to RA education, and has a
full roster of internal practitioner-led education that supports the My
Librarian program, according to Reader Services Librarian Alison
Kastner.
While an in-house RA 101 class is
required for all Information Services staff at MCL, they also offer a
full “menu” of other RA classes to their staff. As in MCL, initiatives
to bring RA online are usually developed by practitioners, and all
education for them is created by the library system. In addition,
education around RA online cannot just address the practice of RA but
also has to address the technological skills needed to move RA online,
which often presents an equal barrier."
