New Logos Available for your homepage

Both the Tampa Hillsborough Public Library and Lee County have been hard at work and you get to benefit from it!   Both library systems created really great custom Ask a Librarian logos for their homepage and have given us permission to offer them to you!

They are now available on our information page along with Director’s Chair Logos and several versions of our traditional logo at:  http://info.askalibrarian.org/logos.asp 

New Marketing Materials Available!

Ask a Librarian has just received new marketing materials including two versions of our newest posters: 

 

           

And, the matching bookmarks (notice they now state hours are in eastern time)

           

Order these and other materials online today at:   info.askalibrarian.org/promotional.asp  

In a few days, we should have both the bookmarks and posters available as templates for those of you interested in customized printing.  I will post a message when we have this live.

We’re Moving

We’re moving in Second Life.  Our new location is http://slurl.com/secondlife/Eduisland%203/35/215/23  Hope you’ll stop by and visit our new location. 

The Quality Assurance Workgroup has named August’s Exemplary Reference Awards!

The Quality Assurance Workgroup has been hard at work and has awarded the following transcripts for August Exemplary Reference Awards of the Month.  Transcripts were awarded in three categories:  Best Detailed Chat, Best Brief Chat, and Best Teaching Chat.     David Parsons from Hillsborough County Public Library Cooperative will receive a gift card to Border’s for his Best Detailed Chat and all three winners will receive a certificate at a presentation at this year’s Florida Library Association Annual Meeting in St Petersburg, Florida.

Exemplary Detailed Chat
David Parsons, Hillsborough County Public Library Cooperative    
David’s patron needed to pay a speeding ticket accrued a year ago. Patron wasn’t sure which county ticket came from: he was stopped between Cocoa and Jacksonville. David offered to email him all the county sites. 8/19/2007 12:47:52 PM 20 min.

Exemplary Brief Chat
Marylou Galvin, Broward County Public 
This brief chat has a good reference interview, good use of creditable sites, and good patron rapport. 8/15/2007 0 hr 8 min 4 sec

Exemplary Teaching Chat
Lora Glass, Niceville Public Library
Lora assisted a community college student who was having difficulties accessing LINCC databases for a research project on the topic of the Harlem Renaissance. Lora used co-browse to show the student the Florida Electronic Library literary databases. The student was grateful for the excellent information that was found with Lora’s help.
     
To nominate a transcript, login to the Ask a Librarian Toolbox (http://info.askalibrarian.org) and click on the banner ad.

Calling all Florida high school students!

Calling all Florida high school students!

Make your directorial debut with
The Director’s Chair YouTube contest

What is The Director’s Chair?
The Director’s Chair is a video contest for Florida high school students. Create a 30-second video promoting Ask a Librarian for the chance to win a hard-drive video camera, a Nintendo Wii or a digital audio player jukebox.

That’s right, we need YOU to help us promote Ask a Librarian!

So…what exactly IS Ask a Librarian?
It’s a free online service that allows you to chat with a Florida librarian for instant help with homework, papers and general questions. (Want to learn more? Click here.)

Now that you know what Ask a Librarian is, go out and make a creative and entertaining 30-second video that tells the world just how wonderful Ask a Librarian is.  Just load it to The Director’s Chair group on YouTube by January 18, 2008, and the grand prize could be yours.

Be funny! Be serious! Do a spoof! Do a dramedy! Do whatever you want! Just be creative and have fun.

Click here for more information about the contest, including YouTube submission instructions, prizes, official contest rules, release forms and more.

Ask a Librarian launches YouTube contest for Florida High School Students

 

 We are really excited to announce the kickoff of The Director’s Chair, Ask a Librarian’s YouTube contest. And we need your help to get the word out! The Director’s Chair allows students to make their directorial debuts by creating the next Ask a Librarian commercial. We are asking

Florida high school students to create a 30-second video and upload it to YouTube. A panel of judges will determine the top five finalists, and then the public will vote for the best video from those five. The winners receive AWESOME prizes.

 Flyers to share with your teens are available to download as a JPG (here) or as a PDF (here). Or, if you’d like us to mail copies to you, just let me know. The Director’s Chair official logo is available for download here.  In order for The Director’s Chair to be a success, we need you! Please let teens in your community know about the contest. Talk to your school connections, post flyers in your libraries, post the contest logo and link to the contest’s website from your website, post it on your MySpace, FaceBook and blog pages, and spread the word in any other way you can think of!  Next week, Ask a Librarian staff will distribute a press release and start officially promoting the contest throughout the state. But YOU are the biggest voice we have. This is a great chance to get our students involved in Ask a Librarian, and we hope you’re as excited by the contest as we are. Visit www.askalibrarian.org/thedirectorschair for more information, including prizes, official rules, YouTube submission info and release forms.
If you have questions, please let me know!   

Refreshing Our Look

Ask a Librarian is refreshing its look.  Today, we have a new look on our patron entry pages.  Above is a screen shot, of the generic page. Each library’s custom page, will include their email link and any other customizations.      Check it out at:  www.askalibrarian.org

We have a new section, FAQ for users, will learn more about the service,the collaborative nature of the service, and how it works.  Our hours also appear on the front page at all times.

If you have added custom text to your front page via ‘Edit Library Links’ you might want to take a few moments to ensure its not replicating information, and still appears properly. 

Let us know what you think!

Practice Day

Just a reminder that today, Oct. 9th, is our monthly practice session. We have practice events on the second Tuesday of every month. Please log on and join me and your colleagues to practice using the software and keep your skills sharp. You may log in anytime. I will be online from 2-4 PM asking questions as a patron or helping as a librarian.

To practice:
1. Go to http://info.askalibrarian.org/training.asp
2. As an operator
a. choose your local library from the ‘As a Librarian’ pull-down menu
b. the operator must login and ‘Open Live Chat’
c. select the collaborative desk before you select ‘Enter Live Chat’
d. select ‘Enter Live Chat’
3. As a patron (be sure that the operator is online before proceeding)
a. choose any library from the ‘As a Patron’ pull-down menu
b. select ‘Chat’ and proceed
(Note that the operator and patron connect in chat mode only. The operator must select the ‘configure co-browse’ link to initiate the co-browse.)

Please let me know if you have any questions or need a practice account.

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Sneak Peak at The Director’s Chair

We’re giving students a chance to make their directorial debut!

Next week, we will announce The Director’s Chair, a video contest where Florida high school students create 30-second videos promoting Ask a Librarian. Entrants submit their videos via YouTube. An independent panel of judges will choose the top five finalists, and the public will vote for the Grand Prize winner. We’ll need your help promoting this, so be on the lookout for more information very soon!

If you’re interested in being one of our judges, please fill out this quick application:  http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=0j862YFjChlD2kFmgMeMYA_3d_3d

September Statistics Available

 

What a great month! Ask a Librarian is continuing to grow and develop. This month we successfully kicked off our Academic Desk and had over 500 students use the desk.    Overall, we had an increase of 25% from last September in live chat sessions and a 28% increase from last month. Queue logouts also remained low. 

More detailed report is available in pdf and jpg.

Further, a summary report for zipcodes is available here.  If you need a further breakdown of statistics, let us know. 

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