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Three former reference coordinators investigated librarians’ attitudes toward cooperative chat to understand their hesitancy to staff this reference service. A national survey (361 responses) and follow-up interviews (11 participants) revealed a wide range of perspectives and experiences. While some librarians positively viewed their participation in this service, others revealed anxieties and barriers unique to cooperative chat as well as uneven expectations and workload inequities. The researchers propose increasing local communication and training for this often-touted but overlooked service, articulating cooperative chat expectations explicitly, and raising awareness of platform best practices to help alleviate cooperative chat staffing hesitancy.
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Hvizdak et al. (2026) studied this question.
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