Found around town

To be honest, nothing makes me happier than seeing Ask a Librarian promotion materials out on the street.     One day at Walgreen’s the lady in front of me had an AaL lanyard and it made my day.   Simple joys, I guess.

Beth at TBLC recently brought me this snapshot from her daughter’s school

Make statement in 2008, and display Ask a Librarian Marketing Materials.   Order some FREE today online here.

Spring Schedules

The Feb-April schedule is available on When to Work www.whentowork.com. Please log in and check your schedule to make sure everything is correct. If you need your library’s unique log in, please e-mail me and I will send it to you. You can also use the generic log in: askalibrarian, password: askalibrarian to check the schedules.

We will try to keep the academic desk open as much as possible over spring breaks. I will be posting times to volunteer for more help so we can cover everyone’s break and keep the desk open as much as possible.

Exemplary Reference Awards for October 2007

The Quality Assurance Workgroup and AaL staff are happy to announce to the April Exemplary Reference Award Winners! David Stoner from Clearwater Public Library will be receiving a Gift Card to acknowledge the Detailed Chat.

Congrats! to all the award winners.

Exemplary Detailed Chat
David Stoner, Clearwater Public Library. 10/23/2007
Great use of co-browse working with the patron to find the answer to a difficult question.

Exemplary Brief Chat
Laura Baas, State Library of Florida. 10/30/07
Laura helped the patron gain access to information that was not readily available on the internet with enthusiasm and alacrity. She provided an estimated delivery time and left her contact information with the patron in case there was a problem.

Exemplary Teaching Chat
Susan Weiss, Florida International University.
10/30/07 
Susan directed a student to several relevant databases while using the co-browse feature. She asked questions to clarify the information need and suggested keywords based on the student’s response.

To read these sessions, visit info.askalibrarian.org/ and enter into the Ask a Librarian Toolbox.

Please remember to nominate sessions for December and January!!!! To nominate just login to the Ask a Librarian Toolbox and Click on the Banner!

Service out on Sunday, Dec. 16th until 1 PM

This is to let you know that CCLA will be having some electrical systems upgrades early Sunday morning. All of our servers will be off line for the duration of the upgrade. There will be no Ask a Librarian service on Sunday, December 16th until they are finished with the work around noon. We are planning on opening the service at 1:00 PM and things should resume as normal from then. Please let us know if you have any questions or experience any problems.

Are your high school students looking for something to do during winter break?

Ask a Librarian’s The Director’s Chair contest is well underway, but we still need your help to promote it! With winter break quickly approaching, your students will have some free time to fill up. This is the perfect time to promote The Director’s Chair to them. 

We are asking Florida high school students to flaunt their directorial skills by creating a 30-second video about Ask a Librarian and uploading it to YouTube by Jan. 18, 2008, for the chance to win some awesome prizes. In order for The Director’s Chair to be a success, we need YOU! Please let teens in your community know about the contest.

We’ve posted some information here that you are welcome to copy and paste into your own teen blog.   We also have flyers available as a PDF (here) or a JPG (here). Or feel free to post the contest logo (available here) on your website.  

This is a great chance to get our students involved in Ask a Librarian. We hope you’re as excited by the contest as we are, and we thank you for promoting The Director’s Chair!  

Visit www.askalibrarian.org/thedirectorschair for more information, including prizes, official rules, YouTube submission info and release forms.

BLOG FOR YOUR TEEN PAGE! PLEASE COPY AND PASTE!

What are you gonna do during YOUR vacation?

The Director’s Chair YouTube contest 

Hey, Florida high school students!

Winter vacation is almost here. How about making a movie during your time off? Have you heard about The Director’s Chair video contest? 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.

November Statistics Available

 

What a great month! Ask a Librarian is continuing to grow and develop. Overall, we had an increase of 14.2% over last November in general, and a 22% increase in live reference.   Our Academic Desk had 641 students use the desk, a 28.9% increase over last month.   A full report including the top ten is available online here.   A report of use by zipcode is available here and a report of use by entry point is available here.   If you need additional statistics, please let me know. 

Links in library catalogs, front pages and databases WORK! Statistically, we can see a library’s numbers rise or drop dramatically when the Ask a Librarian Link is moved. Obvious links throughout your website on your front page (especially using the Ask a Librarian logo) directly correlate with higher use by your users in both live sessions and email use. Conversely, buried logos or placement on only one page, even if under ‘reference’, will decrease use significantly. Logos & free promo materials are at: http://info.askalibrarian.org/ under promotion.