Bartow Public Library Goes Live

We are excited to announce our newest partner, Bartow Public Library goes live on Wed, November 1st.

What do librarians think about Ask a Librarian?

In September, 191 librarians who staff Ask a Librarian logged in to let us know what they thought about the service. We thank everyone who took the time to take the survey. Here are the highlights:

* 62% felt comfortable using the software while 7% were still uncomfortable with the software.

* 74% felt comfortable assisting users in a live, online environment while 10% did not feel comfortable.

* 19% staffed the desk less then 4 times this past year while 81% staffed over 5 times. We also asked for comments in 3 areas.

What do you like best, least, and what would you suggest to improve the service. We had an average of 146 librarians offer comments for these questions. I went ahead and grouped the responses into categories. Below are the category breakdowns for each question.

What do you like least about the service?
Local Questions	49
Technical Problems	40
Need more training	12
Need more Docutek software enhancements	10
Academic vs. public library type questions	8
Scheduling Issues	5
Issues with promotion	1
Other	21

Do you have any suggestions for improving our service or training program?
training suggestions	21
Local Questions	18
Technical Issues & Enhancements	18
Academic vs. public library type questions	6
Inappropriate Patrons 2	1
Other	22
None	28

What do you like most about the service?
Experiences	68
Theory/Philosophy of Service	15
Nothing	12
Creates new library users	8
Able to Help everyone	7
Improved personal Reference Skills	6
Software	6
Training	2
Local Desk	1

The results were overwhelmingly positive though they did show Ask a Librarian staff we still have work to do! We will continue to train and develop new training opportunities in the upcoming grant year. Jennifer is exploring online software to help create short tutorials for those who need a quick refresher. CCLA and TBLC are continuing to work with Docutek to bring the VRLPlus software to the next level with enhancement requests and troubleshooting. We are continuing to market and try and get people aware of Ask a Librarian and what librarians can do for them.

It is particularly heartening to see comments from librarians like, “I like helping someone who has never used a database before; when I “reveal” the articles, they get so excited. I think we are reaching patrons who would not come to the library building.” This is what we strive to achieve and it was great to see so many people has positive sessions.
This year we will continue to focus on creating a stronger Ask a Librarian community while having the service serve more and more residents!

Thanks again for all your feedback!

Bad IP Address

I have some very good news.  We have developed a solution for the overwhelming (and sometimes rude) logins we were getting from IP address 68.56.187.50.  As of yesterday at 2:00 pm the calls should stop.  Diana and I have worked closely with our team at CCLA to develop a solution.  We have inserted a redirect page so that anyone coming to our service from that IP receives a message stating that there has been a problem connecting and offering our phone number to call to re-establish the connection.  In this way they are prevented from logging in but offered a solution to continue using the service.  We hope to make contact in the next few days with a teacher or administrator at this IP address to educate them about the service and explain the scope and expectations of the service.

Please let us know if you do continue to receive questions of this type from any IP address.  We expect that this is a solution that we can implement again in the future, as needed, and have developed a review procedure to handle it.

Thank you all for your hard work and patience during these frustrating shifts.  I’m very glad that we can now restore the level of service we are proud to present to our other customers.  Extra thanks to Doug from CCLA for getting the page up so quickly.  If you have any questions please let us know.

Best Transcripts for Summer 2006

The Quality Assurance Workgroup has awarded the following transcripts from this Summer for Transcripts of the Month. Transcripts were awarded in three categories: Best Detailed Chat, Best Brief Chat, and Best Teaching Chat. Regina Seguin from Valencia Community College will receive a gift card to Border’s for her Best Detailed Chat and all three winners will receive a certificate at a presentation at this year’s Florida Library Association Annual Meeting in Orlando.

Best Detailed Chat: Regina Seguin from Valencia Community College

“Please note that this chat session occurred on the day that much of our state was closed due to Hurricane Ernesto. Despite the fact that our college closed because of the storm warnings, Regina staffed statewide chat from home. You’ll notice the out of state patron entered AAL via the state library page. In my opinion Regina did a remarkable job representing virtual reference librarians during a very time sensitive, emotional chat session. Her communication with the patron is outstanding!”

Nominated by slynch@valenciacc.edu at Valencia CC

For Best Brief Chat: Nicole Heintzelman from Winter Park Public Library

“Nicole quickly and efficiently found information for the patron in an authoritative library resource. She kept in constant contact with the patron. Also, she found and sent a link to the database she used which was available in the patron’s home library. Nicole agreed to send a follow-up email with additional information.”

For Best Teaching Chat: Suzi Holler from Central Florida Library Cooperative
“This was one of those “I can’t use the Internet for this assignment” questions that turned into a real teachable moment about the Internet as source vs. as delivery mechanism, plus (thanks to a broken link at a local library) a whole lesson on using the Florida Electronic Library.”

To view these transcripts, please visit the library toolbox at http://info.askalibrarian.org

Please consider nominating yourself or co-workers for great sessions this October! The form is online in the Ask a Librarian Toolbox.

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Customizable Bookmarks Now Available

We are happy to announce customizable artwork is now available for bookmarks.

At http://info.askalibrarian.org/toolbox/bookmarks.asp, there are three designs available for your library to download, customize and print. There is space on the bookmarks for your library to promote your URL in place of the generic Ask a Librarian URL.

This is our second attempt at customized marketing, last month we kicked off a series of newspaper ads in 17 community college newspapers and in the UF’s Independent Alligator.

The newspapers were from: Brevard Community College, Broward Community College, Central Florida Community College, Daytona Community College, Florida Community College at Jacksonville, Florida Keys Community College, Lake Sumter Community College, Miami Dade College, North Florida Community College, Okaloosa-Walton College (in schedule for classes since don’t have a paper), Palm Beach Community College, Pensacola Junior College, Santa Fe Community College, Seminole Community College , St Petersburg College (online only), Valencia Community College and University of Florida.

How to edit your knowledgebase entry

Click on the link to watch a tutorial about editing your library’s knowledgebase entry.

http://www.tblc.org/askalibrarianblog/wp-content/uploads/2006/10/knowledgebase-edit.swf

Ask a Librarian User Demo

Click on the link for an Ask a Librarian demo from the user’s point-of-view.

http://www.tblc.org/askalibrarianblog/wp-content/uploads/2006/10/aaldemo1.swf

Update

Jennifer Away until December

Jennifer’s medical leave will now begin October 27th until the end of December.  She will be available until then.

After the 27th, please send any questions or schedule problems to Diana Sachs-Silveira sachsd@tblc.org who will be your primary contact during this time.

September Statistics

Wow! That is what sums it up best. We broke 2,000 chat sessions for the first time, it was a month of new highs!

Congrats to everyone who covers the desk, I know you are feeling busier than ever! We really value your hard work.

The numbers came in:

• 2,519 live chat sessions
  
• 928 email questions answered through the system,
  
• These numbers are 51.1% higher than last year at the same time overall, with a 75.5% increase in chat sessions alone.
  
• Further, the usage was 25% higher than last month.
  

The full report for the month is available online at: http://info.askalibrarian.org/pdf/statistics.pdf

Statistics Down

This weekend the statistical reports went down. With the report, “Live Chat- Patron entry points by operator,” a page cannot be displayed error (HTTP 500 – Internal server error Internet Explorer) appears.

We have reported the error to Docutek and hope to have the report up shortly. We’ll update this post and let you know when the report is up again.

Thanks for your patience.

UPDATE:  The report is up and running again!