Evaluating a Recorded Appointment Service for Individual Research Consultations between Librarians and Allied Health Students

Purpose Research consultations are a long-established means of providing training and support to students undertaking research activities (Stapleton et al., 2020). Literature on research consultations consistently reports a high level of satisfaction and that students value the individual, bespoke advice received via one-on-one tuition from a librarian. As a service however, research consultations are resource-intensive and maximizing the learning potential of consultations is a priority in order to justify the expenditure of staff time and ensure the sustainability of services. This study reports on the outcomes of a service development where students attending research consultations were offered a screen cast recording of their appointment to support the retention and application of information literacy (IL) skills and research processes covered in the research consultation. The study explored student perceptions of the service and how the recording of the appointment was integrated into research practices. Design The study used a mixed-method approach including a questionnaire and interviews. Quantitative elements explored if and how students engaged with recordings made during research consultations while qualitative elements investigated students’ perceptions of the service and how content from the recordings was used to complete research activities. Findings Findings indicated a high degree of positive feedback on the service and reveal complex user behaviours when using appointment recordings. The study demonstrates that the addition of multimedia recording during individual research consultations may offer significant benefits to students by improving knowledge retention and application and for librarians by reducing follow-up enquiries and increased engagement with the service. Originality This study is believed to be the first to investigate the perceptions and use of synchronous recording of research consultations between librarians and students. Practical Implications The findings of this study give an evidential basis for library and reference services interesting in incorporating synchronous recording into a research consultation service.