Soaring into the Future of Chat Reference: Assessing for Quality in Cooperative Chat Reference

Online reference allows for libraries to join cooperatives to provide chat reference when local librarians are not available, far extending the hours assistance is available to patrons. As the future brings more cross institutional collaboration, how do we know that cooperative chat is effective for our patrons? Librarians at one institution worked to develop a rubric to assess chat transcripts for the quality of services provided. Over one academic term, these librarians assessed chat transcripts answered by academic librarians from other libraries. This poster will share the rubric used to assess transcripts, research methods, and initial findings from collected data