l.-r.: Leah Dodd, Robert Kotaska

On March 1, New York state registered its first confirmed case of COVID-19. From March 1 through March 10, at units and service points across Cornell University Libraries (CUL):

• 587 questions were answered at physical service points.
• 362 questions were answered over email.
• 87 questions were answered through chat.
• 55 questions were answered over the phone.

Only 39 of the 87 chats (44.83) were answered by CUL staff; the rest were answered by partner libraries in our chat cooperative.

On March 10, Cornell University (CU) President Martha E. Pollack announced a move to virtual instruction starting after the scheduled spring break at the end of March, with students advised to return to their permanent addresses over the break unless extenuating circumstances prevented them from doing so. Online instruction was slated to begin on April 6.

From March 11 through March 13, at units and service points across CUL:

• 180 questions were answered at physical service points.
• 104 questions were answered over email.
• 36 questions were answered through chat.
• 18 questions were answered over the phone.

Only 17 of the 36 chats (47.22 percent) were answered by CUL staff.

Just three days later, on Friday, March 13, classes on the Ithaca campus were suspended, and students were urged to leave by March 29 unless they had been granted an exemption. That same day, all local school districts suspended K–12 classes, and employees with elevated risk factors were urged to finalize their work from home plans.

On the weekend of March 14–15, at units and service points across CUL:

• 11 questions were answered at physical service points.
• 20 questions were answered over email.
• 8 questions were answered through chat.
• 2 questions were answered over the phone.

While CUL did not staff weekend chat at this time, staff reviewed co-op chat transcripts and referred or followed up as needed.

On Sunday, March 15, the CUL Virtual Reference Response Team was formed via a chain of emails. The group met for the first time on Monday, with roughly half of the team sitting far apart in a conference room in a library building and the others participating remotely. This hybrid of in-person and digital was a harbinger of the group's core goal: to provide a level of service patrons expect on campus in the digital realm.

That evening, most staff in reference services left campus with a plan to begin remote work. Access services and interlibrary loan staff remained onsite, arranging for access to physical items in the collections for which there was not yet access to a digital equivalent.

Our Virtual Reference Response Team consisted of six members from two of the largest libraries on campus, those supporting research and learning in the arts and social sciences as well as agriculture, life sciences, and human ecology. Among the topics that first day: increasing chat's presence on library websites (it was at the time available from one central page) and increasing the hours CUL staff were available to monitor chats.

Thanks to diligent effort by members of the Response Team, and overwhelming support from administration throughout the library system, on March 18, new chat widgets were deployed across all CUL websites, providing a persistent chat presence at each patron's moment of need. From library guides to catalog records to "My Account" pages, patrons discovered and used chat from locations that would not have been possible prior to March 18. It was a game changer.

From March 16 through March 20, at units and service points across CUL, with a large number answered from CUL staff's home offices:

• 20 questions were answered at physical service points.
• 285 questions were answered over email.
• 156 questions were answered through chat.
• 8 questions were answered over the phone.

117 of the 156 chats (75 percent) were answered by CUL staff.

On March 20, in compliance with Governor Cuomo's order that all nonessential workers were required to stay home, CUL closed all physical locations to staff and visitors until further notice. CUL lost access to a large portion of our 8 million physical volumes, study materials in carrels and lockers, equipment, and even book returns.

Another paradigm shift, and again, CUL’s Virtual Reference Response Team pivoted—its guiding light providing the bedrock scholarly support and connection the library is known for in what were, until two weeks prior, impossible to comprehend circumstances.

Without access to library buildings, the Virtual Reference Response Team focused on building capacity in the ways we already connected with our remote users. Leveraging our Ask a Librarian suite of email, chat, and in-depth research consultations options became our primary concern.

Although chat was accurately advertised as a 24/7 library service, CUL staff covered the service Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. through 5 p.m., with statewide and global consortia members picking up questions outside of those hours. While Cornell staff reviewed and followed up on chats outside our hours, it was decided that, with the rapid changes to library services and expectations, we had to answer more chats with local reference and public services staff.

In order to support library users in other time zones, as well as scholars that worked in the evenings or on weekends due to other commitments such as part-time jobs, child-care responsibilities, or balancing household schedules, we committed to staffing the chat service with local CUL operators until 8 p.m. on Monday through Thursday, with a 6 p.m. end of day on Friday, and new weekend hours of noon to 6 p.m. on Saturday and until 8 p.m. on Sunday.

On March 21, Cornell's chat coverage expanded from 35 hours, 5 days a week to 67 hours, 7 days a week. In order to meet the moment, the Digital Reference Group reached out across CUL to investigate interest in joining our new chat cohort. To bring new chatters into the group quickly, we asked for experience in front-line reference, no matter how dusty, or experience with the software platform. Collectively, we set a training and scheduling plan, with several members of the team leading the effort to train 16 new chatters in a remote ecosystem.

From March 21 through April 5, from CUL staff's home offices throughout the region:

• 0 questions were answered at physical service points.
• 628 questions were answered over email.
• 275 questions were answered through chat.
• 8 questions were answered over the phone.

177 of the 275 chats (64.36 percent) were answered by Cornell staff.

Virtual reference traffic climbed, and the new 16 chatters’ support was essential in our ability to be ready to respond and support our patrons. Starting April 6, we staffed all chat hours with double coverage through the end of the Spring semester.

From April 6 through May 26, from CUL staff's home offices throughout the region:

• 0 questions were answered at physical service points.
• 2,010 questions were answered over email.
• 852 questions were answered through chat.
• 8 questions were answered over the phone.

660 of the 831 chats (79.42 percent) were answered by Cornell staff.

On May 27 we rested—but not as much as we normally might. Digital Reference traffic continued at twice our regular influx. We also had time to look at the data. And here is what we found:

From March 18 through May 26 just over half (667) of the 1,283 chats arrived through our original, single chat link. The rest arrived through the variety of new channels members of the Digital Reference Group added in mid-March.

Expanding the CUL staffed hours led to 75.3 percent of all incoming chats from March 18 through May 26 being answered by Cornell staff, compared to just over 50 percent of all questions from the same time period in 2019. While our chat co-op partners provide excellent support in off hours, library services around the world were changing rapidly as their campuses responded to COVID-19, and providing real-time accurate local information became more difficult, especially when fielding questions from many different institutions during a single chat shift. With increased local coverage, CUL staff's increased availability allowed more patrons to connect with Cornell at the time they needed it most. The exodus from campus was jarring, and many students were looking for that touch of Ithaca alongside any solution to their bibliographic or research needs.

Virtual reference services offer meaningful remote work for library staff who have not yet been approved to return to campus. The Virtual Reference Response Team continues to seek out additional places to place chat widgets for greater access to this service, including embedded links in subject guides for librarian office hours, while staffing virtual reference services to meet students from all time zones.

On June 30, President Pollack announced, “plan to have an in-person semester with hybrid instruction and opportunities for remote learning for those who cannot return.”

On July 7, the Virtual Reference Response Team met for the first time to discuss how to best support Cornell faculty, students, and staff during a hybrid semester supporting students on campus and across the globe. At press time, reference staff at Olin Library plan to offer only virtual reference services through chat, email, and Zoom during the fall semester.

Leah Dodd (ltd8@cornell.edu) is Lead Librarian for Research Services and Robert Kotaska ( rfk45@cornell.edu) is Reference Desk & Map Room Coordinator, Research & Learning Services, Olin Library, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY.