This i
nvestigatio
n of
new approaches to improvi
ng collaboratio
n, user/libraria
n experie
nces, a
nd sustai
nability for virtual refere
nce services (VRS) reports fi
ndi
ngs from a gra
nt project titled “Cyber Sy
nergy: Seeki
ng Sustai
nability betwee
n Virtual Refere
nce a
nd Social Q&A Sites” (Radford, Co
nnaway, &
Shah,
nces:#asi23668-bib-0054" class="link__reference js-link__reference" title="Link to bibliographic citation">2011&
ndash;2014). I
n-depth telepho
ne i
nterviews with 50 VRS libraria
ns i
ncluded questio
ns o
n collaboratio
n, referral practices, a
nd attitudes toward Social Questio
n a
nd A
nswer (SQA) services usi
ng the Critical I
ncide
nt Tech
nique (Fla
naga
n,
nces:#asi23668-bib-0018" class="link__reference js-link__reference" title="Link to bibliographic citation">1954). The Commu
nity of Practice (CoP) (We
nger,
nces:#asi23668-bib-0069" class="link__reference js-link__reference" title="Link to bibliographic citation">1998; Davies,
nces:#asi23668-bib-0014" class="link__reference js-link__reference" title="Link to bibliographic citation">2005) framework was fou
nd to be a useful co
nceptualizatio
n for u
ndersta
ndi
ng VRS professio
nals' approaches to their work. Fi
ndi
ngs i
ndicate that participa
nts usually refer questio
ns from outside of their area of expertise to other libraria
ns, but occasio
nally refer them to
no
nlibraria
n experts. These referrals are made possible because participa
nts believe that other VRS libraria
ns are qualified a
nd willi
ng collaborators. Barriers to collaboratio
n i
nclude
not k
nowi
ng appropriate libraria
ns/experts for referral, i
nability to verify crede
ntials, a
nd perceived u
nwilli
ng
ness to collaborate. Facilitators to collaboratio
n i
nclude k
nowledge of appropriate collaborators who are qualified a
nd willi
ng
ness to refer. A
nswers from SQA services were perceived as less objective a
nd authoritative, but participa
nts were ope
n to collaborati
ng with
no
nlibraria
n experts with co
nfirmatio
n of professio
nal expertise or exte
nsive k
nowledge.