Don’t forget to join us at FLA

When you arrive, pick up an Ask a Librarian ribbon at the registration desk – its a great way to meet your virtual co-workers in the halls.  

There are two programs I hope you will be able to join us for at FLA this year:

***Thursday, Apr 24th at 3:30 in the Bird Key Room Dr Marie Radford , Associate Professor and Library Consultant, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey will be presenting on her research. The program, ““Pls hury it up thanks!!!” Interpersonal Communication in Virtual Reference. Get tips and tactics for boosting satisfaction and enhancing accuracy in live chat reference along with a report of a research project that analyzed live chat reference transcripts from OCLC’s Question Point.

***Friday, Apr 25th at 8:30am in the Royal Tern Room. The Annual Ask a Librarian User Forum. There will be HUGE news this year (and I am not just talking about the ITN)- and a lot of great discussion. Please join us before heading home.
 

Researcher needs your imput

A PhD student at the College of Information at Florida State University is working on an assignment about Ask a Librarian. To help his research, he is hoping you will have a few minutes to take his brief survey:
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=q3T3HcGj7fj1OnBN_2bYiAMQ_3d_3d

Please take a few minutes to complete the survey!

February Exemplary Reference Award Winners Announced

The Quality Assurance Workgroup has been hard at work and has awarded the following transcripts for February Exemplary Reference Awards of the Month. Transcripts were awarded in three categories: Best Detailed Chat, Best Brief Chat, and Best Teaching Chat. Tracy Blimes from Pasco County Libraries will receive a gift card to Amazon.com for his Exemplary 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
Tracy Blimes, Pasco County Libraries. Tracy took the patron to the home website and was able to navigate that site to find and show the patron the magazine that was needed within Gale’s Onefile. Good job working with a patron from another library!

Exemplary Teaching Chat
Owen Adams, Okaloosa Walton College. Owen first asked the student questions about the topic being researched and the kinds of resources needed. Then Owen led the student through the steps to take to access online database resources, directing the student to databases that would be especially useful.

Exemplary Brief Chat
Neil Linger, University/College Library at Broward Community College. Neil answered this question quickly, but stopped to listen to the patron, presented several alternative recommendations and created a good rapport with the St Leo student.

To view the winning transcripts, login to the Ask a Librarian Toolbox at: http://info.askalibrarian.org

Don’t forget to join us at the Ask a Librarian User Forum, Friday, Apr 25th at 8:30 at FLA.

Get to know the Quality Assurance Workgroup

Ever wonder who decides on the Exemplary Reference Awards each month?

Now you can find out by checking out the biographies of the Quality Assurance Workgroup in the Ask a Librarian Toolbox. Take a moment, and check out the bios for the workgroup.

They are available at: http://info.askalibrarian.org/toolbox/qa.asp inside the Ask a Librarian Toolbox. If you are not logged into the toolbox, you will need to login. Alternatively, to access this, login to the Ask a Librarian Toolbox (click on toolbox), and under Exemplary Reference Awards and click on the link to the Quality Assurance Workgroup (4th link).

March Statistics Available

In March, we had a 4.7% increase in sessions from last March. We also had a 3.9% increase in live chat sessions from February 2008.  Librarians answered a 966 questions through the AaL email module. The Academic Queue continued to thrive answering 518 questions (or 16.2% of total live chat questions).

The Top 10 Counties by Zip Code:
1. Dade
2. Orange
3. Broward
4. Pinellas
5. Duval
6. Palm Beach
7. Hillsborough
8. Sarasota
9. Volusia
10. Lee

The Top 10 Libraries by Entry Point:
1. Orange County Library System
2. Miami-Dade Public Library
3. State Library Of Florida, Div. Of Lib & Info.
4. Tampa-Hillsborough County Public Library
5. Broward County Library
6. University Of Florida
7. Miami-Dade College
8. St Petersburg College
9. Jacksonville Public Library
10. Valencia Community College

A report of use by county by zip code is available here and a report of use by entry point is available here. A full summary report is available online here.

Great Job to everyone! Your time and expertise makes Ask a Librarian the success it is.

ITN has been released

As mentioned in a previous post, Ask a Librarian has released an Invitation to Negotiate (ITN) for new software. 

We want to ensure that we have the best software available to enhance Ask a Librarian’s interface and our users’ experience. This is an exciting time for Ask a Librarian, as we have a great opportunity to build on the success of the last five years.

We are inviting any company interested in working with Ask a Librarian to respond to our ITN by Monday, April 28, 2008.

The ITN and additional information is available at http://info.askalibrarian.org/itn.asp.

Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions.    We will provide additional details about the process at the FLA User Group Forum. 

Practice Day

Just a reminder that next Tuesday, April 8th 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 PM asking questions as a patron or helping as a librarian. Please let me know if you need a practice site log in.