Word Cloud for November

Questions asked in Ask a Librarian in a world cloud.  The word cloud was created using wordle.net

TGIF Tips – 12/12/08, Issue 9

As many of you know, Ask a Librarian is funded as part of the Florida Electronic Library (FEL).  Both Ask a Librarian and the Florida Electronic Library share a common goal of providing reference and information services to residents of Florida.  Through the FEL, Florida patrons have access to a number of electronic resources, including magazine & newspaper articles, almanacs, encyclopedias, books, and more – just by having a public library card.  What does this mean to you?  This means that you can visit the Florida Electronic Library Website and enter the patron’s card number from any public library in Florida to gain instant access to a number of electronic resources, including several Gale databases.  Knowing that you & your patrons (as Florida residents) have access to these resources is essential, and will prove especially helpful in assisting those patrons whose access to proprietary databases is otherwise limited. 

To give you a brief idea of the information available, a few non-subscription-based FEL resources are noted below.  However, there are many more where these came from, so please visit the Florida Electronic Library Website to familiarize yourself with the wealth of information at your fingertips.  Also, you can view a complete list of FEL’s licensed databases here.

Homework Resources at the FEL (non-proprietary)
Florida Facts for Kids
This portion of Florida’s Division of Historical Resources web site offers age-appropriate information on Florida – a great homework helper.

PALMM Literature for Children
Search and browse more than 2,600 digitized children’s books from Florida universities.  This open-web resource includes books from the 17th through the 20th centuries.

SUNLINK
SUNLINK is Florida’s electronic catalog of K-12 public school media center holdings.  Freely accessible on the open Web, SUNLINK promotes the sharing of resources among Florida’s public schools by providing availability information on items and by using an established interlibrary loan process for use by teachers and students.  You can search for materials that correlate with your patron’s specific Reading Program (such as Accelerated Reader or Reading Counts), Interest Level (such as K-3), and Lexile range.

Florida Resources at the FEL (non-proprietary)
Florida Heritage 
Florida’s Division of Historical Resources web site offers a vast amount of information, but the Florida Facts page is an especially helpful ready reference source. 

Florida Memory Project
Easy to navigate and fun to browse, the Florida Memory Project contains documents, photographs, and a variety of other media taken from the Florida Collection of the State Library of Florida.  This would be a great place for those patrons needing primary sources on Florida history. 

Florida on Florida
Florida On Florida is a catalog of digital materials held by Florida museums and historical societies.  It includes various items such as manuscripts, maps, photographs, and postcards, and all record-attached descriptions are completely full-text searchable.

Password-embedded Gale Links
Did you know that the Agent Console contains password-embedded links to the Gale databases subscribed to by the Florida Electronic Library?  This means that you can view and push the basic search pages, and sometimes more, without ever having to enter a library card number.  In fact, in resources such as Academic OneFile, Gale Virtual Reference Library, and LitFinder, you can use the BOOKMARK feature [top, left hand corner under the database title] to create a URL that the patron will be able to open on their end.  The BOOKMARK feature allows you to push both results lists and individual articles to the patron that will display consistently and without need for authentication.  Check out all the available links in the Gale Resources folder under the URLs tab.     

Important Schedule Reminders

• Because the Academic Desk is closed during the month of December, all those scheduled to cover Academic during December should log in to the Collaborative Desk instead.  The Academic Desk will reopen on January 5.
• Ask a Librarian will be closed from Tuesday, December 23 thru Sunday, January 4.

Ask a Librarian Monitored Practice Sessions 

Please join your colleagues in the Practice/Training Room every Tuesday from 9 – 10 am for statewide monitored practice.  To join the practice session as a librarian, please log in to the toolbox, click on the “Practice/Training” link on the left, and follow the instructions to login as a librarian or patron.  Feel free to pick up any patrons that come into the training room.

Happy holidays!
Traci

Help Promote the Director’s Chair!

Ask a Librarian is in the middle of The Director’s Chair, our second annual YouTube contest for Florida high school students, and it would be great if you could help us to promote it by posting the below information on your teen website or blog before students break for winter vacation.  

This contest is a great way to let students know about Ask a Librarian, and we’d like to get the word out to as many people as possible.  

For information about the contest, please visit www.askalibrarian.org/thedirectorschair.  For logos to promote the contest on your site go to: http://info.askalibrarian.org/contest_promo_materials.asp and to order flyers for your library go to: http://info.askalibrarian.org/ and click on marketing.

Thanks for your help!

Blog Entry to Post:

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 digital video camera, a digital camera or an iPod Shuffle with an iTunes gift card. 

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 17, 2009, 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.

 

 

October Exemplary Reference Awards Announced

The Quality Assurance Workgroup has been hard at work and has awarded the following transcripts for October 2008 Exemplary Reference Awards of the Month.  Transcripts were awarded in three categories: Best Detailed Chat, Best Brief Chat, and Best Teaching Chat.    Katie Tyler from Winter Park Public Library 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 next year’s Florida Library Association Annual Meeting in Orlando, Florida.

Brief Exemplary Chat Susan Smith, Hodges University on Oct 13. Susan helped the Manatee County Community College student with their databases.

Detailed Exemplary Chat Katie Tyler,  Winter Park Public Library on Oct 30. Helped the user find statistics on how many pets euthanized and cremated.

Teaching Exemplary Chat Susan Livingston, South Florida Community College on October 15. Wonderful coaching on finding article in a database.

To nominate a session or view past winners go to the Ask a Librarian Toolbox at: http://info.askalibrarian.org

November Statistics

What a great month! Ask a Librarian continued to break usage records with 12% increase in live chat sessions from last year.

The new software continues to help make it easier for AAL to answer more questions effectively.

Great Work Everyone!!!!

Summary Report: November Summary Report
Zip Code Report: zipcodes-november

Entry Point: entry-point-november   (use http://www.tblc.org/askalibrarianblog/2009/04/06/march-statistics-2/ )

If you need an additional report, please contact me.

TGIF Tips – 11/21/08, Issue 8 (Previous Issue)

Thanks in part to our cool new InstantService software and in part to our awesome staff, the Tips will be able to start covering issues relating to virtual reference outside of the confines of software troubleshooting.  Here are some recommendations, taken from the Ask a Librarian Policies and Procedures, for effectively dealing with some of the situations you might encounter while staffing the Ask a Librarian desk.  If have other suggestions for dealing with these situations, or have questions about these or other issues – as always, please let us know.  We’d love to hear from you, and your peers will benefit from the experiences of others who staff the desk.   

Recommendations:  Inappropriate Use of Ask a Librarian
Whether the original question crosses the line of acceptable or follow-up questions become personal/invasive or otherwise inappropriate, you are not obligated to continue working with a patron who is using the Ask a Librarian inappropriately.  If a patron makes you feel uncomfortable or is behaving inappropriately, please consider the following:
-  Send a script from the “Inappropriate” category under the “Text” tab in the Agent Console.  (You can also create your own from the Account Administration page).  Feel free to modify as needed to suit the situation.
-  Ask another staff if you may transfer the patron (if you feel that the question is legitimate but for whatever reason the chat is not going smoothly) – either by private IM or through the agent room.  Remember to click on “Leave” once the staff enters the session.  After logging out a session for a patron who used the session inappropriately, please inform your coworkers. This might alert them so that they do not feel unnecessarily violated if they eagerly work with a patron just to find out that they were taken advantage of. 
-  Remember:  a patron does not have to be insulting to be inappropriate; patrons that come in repeatedly and seem to use the service more for “company” than for answers take time from other patrons and are still abusing the service.
-  In addition, patrons who are abusing the system may log in repeatedly under different names, so please note the IP address (even though some IPs host multiple patrons). 
-  When closing a session, please choose the “Inappropriate” category status.
-  Notify your site coordinator or the Ask a Librarian staff if you have any concerns.

Recommendations:  Accepting Patrons at Closing
If you are still working with a patron at the end of your shift:
-  At your discretion, continue to help the patron if you determine that the transaction can be ended quickly.  If you cannot complete the transaction and the desk is still open, and the patron would like to continue, transfer the patron to another librarian.
-  If the question requires more in-depth research and you would like to complete the transaction with the patron, obtain patron’s email address and continue the transaction via email.

If you have not completed a transaction when the desk is closing:
-  Explain to the patron as the session progresses that the desk closing time is approaching.
-  Relay the hours of service to patron, asking if they would like to login again tomorrow or direct them to the email service.
-  If the question requires more in-depth research and you would like to complete the transaction with the patron, obtain patron’s email address and continue the transaction via email.

If a patron is logging in within 5 minutes of service closing:
-  Explain that the service is closing in 5 minutes.
-  Direct patron to login in again when the service reopens or direct them to email service.

Recommendations:  Non-Responsive Patron
While staff should attempt to maintain communication with the patron and not end a chat prematurely, there are some cases where patrons stop communicating without notice.  When this happens:
-  Send a “Hi – are you still with us?” or similar script to communicate to the patron in a friendly way that you are still trying (or waiting) to communicate.
-  Regularly monitor the animated typing keyboard icon that shows when the patron is actively typing.
-  Give the patron several minutes to respond to you, and then send a warning message that you will be ending the session shortly.  Let them know they are welcome to return when they are ready to be helped.

 
Ask a Librarian Workshops & Ongoing Monitored Practice Sessions 
Beginning Tues., Dec. 2, I will be available each Tuesday from 9 – 10 am in the Practice/Training Room for ongoing monitored practice.  To join the statewide practice as a librarian, please log in to the toolbox at http://info.askalibrarian.org/toolbox/login.asp, click on the “Practice/Training” link on the left, and follow the instructions to login as a librarian or patron.  Feel free to pick up any patrons that come into the training room.  (Note:  There will be no monitored practice on Tues., Nov. 25.) 

Also, more classes were added to the training schedule this week, including an Ask a Librarian Online 2-hour Training and a ScreenSharing class.   The Ask a Librarian 2-hour workshop is perfect for those who weren’t able to attend a previous training session, or would like to retake the training, for instruction on the new Instant Service software.  Please visit http://www.tblc.org/ws_classes.php to register.