New Look for our Info and Toolbox Pages

As you may have noticed logging into Ask a Librarian, we have a new look. Doug, our web guru has been updating both our general information page and the Ask a Librarian Toolbox. As the service has grown, more and more information was placed on these pages and we know it wasn’t always in the most obvious or aesthetically pleasing way. The new look organizes the pages, gives the site a much slicker look and uses an underlying code that makes the pages 508 compliant.

Annual Report Available

The 2006-2007 grant year was a great year for Ask a Librarian. The year saw Ask a Librarian grow 94% in use from the previous year. Through Ask a Librarian, Florida Librarians answered 43,844 questions (31,359 live chat, 12,485 email). Several new libraries joined the Ask a Librarian community last year; they are: Bartow Public, Clearwater Public Library, Florida International University, Florida Memorial Library, John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, and Parkland Public Library.

We also implemented the Academic Desk and an Associate Partnership Membership for schools. We feel that both have fit in with Ask a Librarian wonderfully and have helped the service mature even further. Quality Assurance also took the forefront last year, and will continue this year. Strong customer service is a core value of Ask a Librarian and essential for our success. The Quality Assurance Workgroup grew to 9 members to help manage the growing number of sessions, and has been trying to generate more involvement by opening up the nomination for Exemplary Reference Awards to everyone.

Last year also saw several new marketing campaigns: Ask a Librarian in Social Networking Sites, and niche focuses on community college students, the business community and back to school in high schools and colleges throughout Florida.

To read about these accomplishments and more, view the Annual Report online here:  aal-annual-report-2006-07.pdf.  Paper copies are on the way to each participating libraries director, and additional copies can be sent upon request. 

September Exemplary Reference Awards of the Month

The Quality Assurance Workgroup has been hard at work and has awarded the following transcripts for September Exemplary Reference Awards of the Month. 

Transcripts were awarded in three categories:  Best Detailed Chat, Best Brief Chat, and Best Teaching Chat. 

Laura Minnich from Jacksonville Public Library 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 St Petersburg, Florida.

Exemplary Brief Chat
Jill Simser, Brevard Community College.  Jill very quickly showed the patron literary criticisms from the Literature Resource Center database. She encouraged the patron to get a library card so they could access databases on their own. Great help for student looking for criticisms.

Exemplary Detailed Chat
Laura Minnich, Jacksonville Public Library.  Laura worked with a high school student in finding biographical information about Peter Pace, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Laura found an official government description of the Chairman’s duties.

Exemplary Teaching Chat
Deborah Tritt, Nova Southeastern University. Deborah asked a student questions to guide her in helping the student find the best databases (Opposing Viewpoints and Issues and Controversies) in her college’s list for her pro con topic for a speech on the topic of smoking. Using co-browse, Deborah quickly showed the student pertinent resources for her paper.

To read these sessions:  http://info.askalibrarian.org/exemplary.asp
To nominate a session for October:  Visit the Ask a Librarian Toolbox and click on the banner ad.

October Statistics Now Available

October is typically one of the busiest months of the year for Ask a Librarian and this year, the trend continued.  Ask a Librarian had 3,512 live chat sessions (14.2% increase over last year) and 1,130 email questions – a total of 4,652 questions.  In addition, the Academic Desk continued to flourish assisting 526 students this month.  Further, we were able to increase our call pick up rate to 80% by decreasing queue logouts.  A summary report is available in Summary PDF. 

We continued to collect zip code information and have summarized User Entry Point by zip code in this report:  ZC PDF.  Further, as several of you might of noticed the report for individual libraries is still down.  Doug was able to pull this data from behind the scenes and create a report.  It is available here: EntryPoint1007. 

Practice Day

Just a reminder that Tuesday, Nov. 13th 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 10-12 and 2-4 asking questions as a patron or helping as a librarian. Please visit our practice page to log in http://www.askalibrarian.org/info/training.asp

Mark your calendars…

 

At FLA this year,  the Ask a Librarian User Forum will be 8:30 on Thurs, Apr 24.  In addition, I am really excited to announce Marie Radford will present on her research in virtual reference in a presentation “Pls hury it up thanks!!!” at 3:30 on the 24th.  

Further, Ask a Librarian Staff will have a refresher training at TBLC on Apr 22 from 1-3.  Our hope is you will be able to attend on your way to the conference. To sign up – visit our training page at: http://www.tblc.org/ws_classes.php/#AskaLib

The FLA Conference will be in St. Petersburg this year.      

OCLC Webinar

Not to self promote but I am really excited and wanted to share.  On November 15th(Thursday), I will be presenting on promoting virtual reference for an OCLC webinar.  My presentation will focus on The Director’s Chair YouTube competition and our presence in social networking sites.  Beth Cackowski from New Jersey’s Q&A who is always great to hear will also present – they do lots of very cool promotions….

Here is the official OCLC blurb with registration information: 

Promoting Virtual Reference Services: Beyond Bookmarks

Looking for ways to increase usage and capture the attention of your current and potential users? Register today for a free, live Web information session and find out.

DATE / TIME
Thursday, November 15, 2007, 12:00 – 1:00 pm EST

This webinar highlights two innovative promotions, one on MTV (by New Jersey’s QandANJ), and the other on YouTube (by Florida’s Ask a Librarian service). Our speakers, Beth Cackowski, project coordinator of QandANJ, and Diana Sachs-Silveira (of Florida’s Ask a Librarian service) will discuss these and other promotional activities, as well as answer your questions on what works, what doesn’t work and what they are doing to entice new users to library reference services.

Registration online at:  http://www.oclc.org/info/reference/

Training schedule

I have developed an annual training schedule to help you plan ahead for when training will be available in your area. This is the full day of training for librarians who are new to the service or would like to take the training again.

There will probably be additional dates as new libraries join the service or as special needs arise. I’ve indicated several workshops that have tentative dates pending training room availability. I will confirm these dates and locations as they become available.

There is a special opportunity on April 15th and 22nd from 1-3 PM at the Tampa Bay Library Consortium for update/refresher workshops. If you are coming to St. Petersburg for FLA on the 22nd we may be on your way if you’d like to attend. For more information or to register follow this link for April 15th http://www.tblc.org/ws_info.php?ws=583 and this one for April 22nd http://www.tblc.org/ws_info.php?ws=584

Here are the dates and links for more information and to register for the full day of training. All workshops are from 9:00-3:30:

December 13th
Tampa Bay Library Consortium
Tampa
http://www.tblc.org/ws_info.php?ws=579

January 4th
Tallahassee Community College
Tallahassee
http://www.tblc.org/ws_info.php?ws=593

February 1st
Florida Gulf Coast University
Fort Myers
http://www.tblc.org/ws_info.php?ws=580

February 19th
Palm Beach Community College
Lake Worth
http://www.tblc.org/ws_info.php?ws=594

April 2nd & 3rd
Northeast Florida Library Information Network
Orange Park
April 2nd
http://www.tblc.org/ws_info.php?ws=581
April 3rd
http://www.tblc.org/ws_info.php?ws=582

May 20th
Central Florida Library Cooperative
Maitland
http://www.tblc.org/ws_info.php?ws=585

Tentative:
August, Santa Fe Community College, Gainesville

September 17th
Nova Southeastern University
Ft. Lauderdale
http://www.tblc.org/ws_info.php?ws=586

Registration for all the training sessions is also available from here http://www.tblc.org/aaltraining

Please let me know if you have any questions. I hope to see you soon at one of these sessions!

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User Survey Results for September 2007

Each quarter, we do a user satisfaction survey to ensure we are successfully assisting our users.   
 
In September, we completed a survey and received feedback from 1,067 users (a 33.9% response rate).  Over 85% of users would use again- a great indication that we are providing a useful service to the residents of Florida.   From the glowing comments about the service, our users are generally happy with the service.  
 
    – 23% were returning users and 76.3% new.  This would be typical with back-to-school.
    – 81.3% felt their question was completely or partially answered
    – 53.2% were shown web-based resources during their session
    – 90%  of those shown web-based resources felt they would be able use those same resources on their own later.
    – 85.7% said they would use Ask a Librarian again. 
 
Several librarians were individually pointed out by their user for great service:  
Ashley
Eve C, Jacksonville Public
Louis, Intern (3 different users)
Ken, Barry University, (2 different users)
Jan (Hodges University)
Sam
Lora (Niceville Public Library)
Jack S (Tampa-Hillsborough Public Library)
Lynn
Owen (Okaloosa Walton College)
Lena (South Florida Community College)
 
Comments from users included:
-   A Truly Wonderful Resource, making it my homepage, wonderful!
-   I don’t believe you can improve on something that needs no more improvement.
- This is the best service available for us patrons.   Thank you.
 
How does this compare with the entire 2006/07 grant year? It was pretty typical.
Over the whole year:
   -  27% of users were new to the service
    – 81.73% felt their question was completely or partially answered
    – 50% were shown web-based resources during their session
    – 89.18% of those shown web-based resources felt they would be able use those same resources on their own later
    – 87% said they would use Ask a Librarian again. 
                   
What does this mean? I believe we are doing a great job overall, but there is room to improve the service in this upcoming year.     Focusing on customer service and continuing to improve the Docutek software (so you can focus on the customer) will be our top priority this year.