Exemplary Reference Awards December

The Quality Assurance Workgroup has been hard at work and has awarded the following transcripts for December 2008 Exemplary Reference Awards of the Month. Transcripts were awarded in three categories: Best Detailed Chat, Best Brief Chat, and Best Teaching Chat.

Brian Crowell from Goldstein Library (FSU) 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 (Thursday, May 7th at 8:30am).

Exemplary Brief Chat
Shelly Mudgett from Tallahassee Community College
Shelly showed the patron how to access back issues of his local paper online at his home library with his library card. She mixed a little bit of teaching in a fairly brief chat. Much thanks from the patron! Kudos Shelly! 

Exemplary Detailed Chat
Brian Crowell from Goldstein Library (FSU)
Brian was helpful and persistent in finding information for the student. Rapport and contact were excellent. 

Exemplary Teaching Chat
Merrie Davidson from University of Florida
Merrie did a great job helping a student navigate through the UF databases. Explained the difference between academic journals and regular magazines and newspapers, as well as how do perform field searching. Good rapport. 

Don’t forget to nominate your session (by using the closing code- NOMINATE ME FOR EXEMPLARY REFERENCE AWARD) or nominating a session at the online form in the Ask a Librarian toolbox!

Training Announcements

A few Ask a Librarian training-related announcements:

** There will be no monitored practice session on Tues., Feb. 24. The weekly practice sessions will resume on Tues., Mar. 3 and take place each Tuesday morning from 9 – 10 am as usual.

** A ScreenSharing demo has just been added to our new collection of online staff demos. You can check them out through this direct link, http://info.askalibrarian.org/toolbox/training.asp#demos, or just click on the Technical Support link in the Librarian Toolbox menu. Here are the demos currently available for self-paced viewing:

Logging In
Parts of the Agent Console
Basic Chat
Pushing Web Pages
Screen Sharing

** We are offering a new online workshop called Online Resources Inside the Agent Console. In this workshop, we will navigate through KnowledgeBase, password-embedded Gale resources, and the bookmarks inside the URLs tab. Plus, you can learn how to create your own URL bookmarks for use inside the console. There are two workshops currently available for registration (see the schedule below), so reserve your spot today at http://www.tblc.org/ws_classes.php.

Current Ask a Librarian Training Schedule:

Ask a Librarian Training @ TBLC (Tampa), Tues., Feb. 24, 9:00 am – 3:30 pm

Ask a Librarian Training @ CFLC (Orlando), Mon., Mar. 2, 9:00 am – 3:30 pm

Ask a Librarian 2-Hour Online Training, Thurs., Mar. 12, 9:30 – 11:30 am

E-mail: Online Ask a Librarian Workshop, Tues., Mar. 17, 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm

Online Resources Inside the Agent Console: Online Ask a Librarian Workshop
Thurs., Mar. 26, 10:00 – 10:45 am or
Mon., Apr. 6, 2:00 – 2:45 pm

Click here to register!

Ask a Librarian day was a success!

Our first Ask a Librarian Day was this past Friday, and thanks to your enthusiastic participation and abundant creativity, it was a complete SUCCESS!

We had about a 75 percent increase in usage from the previous weekend, and we know that your word-of-mouth marketing efforts caused our numbers to jump. We couldn’t have asked for better results!

Although Ask a Librarian Day is over, we hope you will continue to speak to your customers every day about our wonderful service. Word-of-mouth marketing is most successful when it’s ongoing.

Here are just some of the great stories that I heard from our participating libraries about the event:

• The dean, assistant deans, and every staff member at FSU’s Harold Goldstein Library wore an Ask a Librarian t-shirt, and they raffled off two t-shirts to customers.
• Staff at the Melbourne Public Library handed out stickers, wore Ask a Librarian t-shirts, and gave a tour group of college students and other patrons information on Ask a Librarian.
• Staff at Florida Keys Community College Library posted information about Ask a Librarian on its blog (http://fkcclibrary.blogspot.com/2009/02/ask-us-about-ask-librarian.html) and MySpace and Facebook pages. 
• Library students at Palm Beach Atlantic University’s Warren Library wore Ask a Librarian t-shirts during their service desk shifts. It went over so big, that other students who work at the library wanted to know if they could have Ask a Librarian shirts of their own. They have enjoyed being asked about Ask a Librarian and having the opportunity to pass on the information.
•  Staff at Leon County Library was interviewed for the local news, WCTV in Tallahassee.

We’d love to hear your stories as well! Tell us what your library did for Ask a Librarian Day, how your customers reacted, and send us pictures of folks wearing the t-shirts and stickers or of any displays you put together in your library. Include names whenever possible so we can properly attribute the photographs.

We’ve started a Flickr page for all of your Ask a Librarian Day photographs: http://www.flickr.com/photos/35694759@N02/.   We’ll be updating it over the next few days as your pictures continue rolling in, so be sure to check back.

Thank you all for your enthusiasm! But, just don’t let your efforts end just because the day is over. Make every day Ask a Librarian Day by talking to your customers about our wonderful service.

Click here to see our sample talking points.

January Statistics Available!

sorry for the delay…

Here are the January reports.  What a great month, once again usage is up! 9% over last January.

Below are the individual reports, please let me know if you have any questions.

January Summary Report
Chat Usage by Entry Point (use http://www.tblc.org/askalibrarianblog/2009/04/06/march-statistics-2/)
Email Usage by Entry Point
Usage By Zip Code

Today is Ask a Librarian Day!

Are you donning a t-shirt and passing out stickers? Have people already started asking your staff members what askalibrarian.org is? If so, then you’re smack dab in the middle of a successful word-of-mouth marketing campaign. Have fun with this!

While you’re talking to your customers, be sure to mention the following points:

1. If you ever need help when you’re not in our library, visit askalibrarian.org (or find the link on our library’s website)
2. Ask a Librarian is a website where you can go to get your questions answered by a real librarian.
3. Ask a Librarian is open until midnight Sunday through Thursday and until 5 p.m. Friday and Saturday.
4. You can use Ask a Librarian for free.
5. If Ask a Librarian isn’t open for chat, you can always email your question to us, and we’ll get back to you within 24 hours.

Don’t forget to take pictures of your customers wearing stickers, your staff wearing t-shirts, any Ask a Librarian displays you’ve put up for this special day, or anything else you think is photo-worthy, and email them to me at sachsd@tblc.org. Include names whenever possible so we can properly attribute the photographs.

Have fun today, and let me know how it goes!

Tomorrow is Ask a Librarian Day!

By now, you should have all gotten your orange Delivery bags of goodies, including t-shirts, stickers and business cards. We’re asking every staff member at all our libraries to participate in Ask a Librarian Day by wearing the t-shirts and passing out the stickers and business cards that you received. Additionally, try talking about our service to every single customer who walks through your library’s doors. Remember, we want to get our customers talking about us to their friends!

Here are a few key speaking points to get you started. Please pass them along to your coworkers.

If you ever need help when you’re not in our library, visit askalibrarian.org.

1. Ask a Librarian is a website where you can go to get your questions answered by a real librarian.
2. Ask a Librarian is open until midnight Sunday through Thursday and until 5 p.m. Friday and Saturday.
3. You can use Ask a Librarian for free.
4. If Ask a Librarian isn’t open for chat, you can always email your question to us, and we’ll get back to you within 24 hours.
5. Don’t forget to take pictures of your customers wearing stickers, your staff wearing t-shirts, any Ask a Librarian displays you’ve put up for this special day, or anything else you think is photo-worthy, and email them to me at sachsd@tblc.org. Include names whenever possible so we can properly attribute the photographs.

But most importantly, HAVE FUN on Ask a Librarian Day! Wear your t-shirts with pride!

Let me know if you have any questions.

Press Release – Ask a Librarian Day

Librarians statewide to celebrate Ask a Librarian Day

 TAMPA, Fla. (Feb. 18, 2009) — Although there won’t be noisemakers or confetti, librarians all over the state will celebrate Ask a Librarian Day on Feb. 20 to bring awareness to Ask a Librarian, a free online reference service that allows Floridians to chat with a librarian for help with homework or general questions.

Librarians at almost 100 libraries around Florida will don t-shirts boasting the message “Ask me about askalibrarian.org” and will talk about the valuable service with their customers. They hope to enlighten people on the benefits of Ask a Librarian so that everyone can take full advantage of this user-friendly collaborative service.

“Ask a Librarian is such a useful online tool for people,” said Diana Silveira, virtual reference manager for Ask a Librarian. “We partner with libraries to offer Floridians an amazing free service at their fingertips. We couldn’t do this without our libraries, and we hope that Ask a Librarian Day gives them a chance to brag a little bit about what they do.”

Ask a Librarian is available 10 a.m. to midnight Sunday through Thursday and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday and Saturday. Visit www.askalibrarian.org for more information or to ask a librarian a question.

Ask a Librarian was founded by the College Center for Library Automation (CCLA) and the Tampa Bay Library Consortium (TBLC), is managed by TBLC, and is funded as part of the Florida Electronic Library (www.flelibrary.org) by a Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) grant.

Ask a Librarian User Survey Results: They Like Us! They really like us!

I spent yesterday looking at user survey responses collected in January for both the collaborative and academic desks. While the number of users taking the study is down, the overall percentage of satisfaction is up.

Highlights include:

• 95% of users reported they plan to use Ask a Librarian again. This is up from 88% last year.
• For the first time ever, we had more returning users than new users taking the User Survey. (76% on the collaborative and 66% on the academic desk were return users.)
• 63% of sessions’ users were shown web-based resources. (62% on the collaborative desk and slightly higher with 71% on the academic desk)
• 96% of users shown resources thought they would be able to use those same resources on their own later. 93% felt they would be more comfortable doing online research in the future.

As with other user studies, the highest percentage of users found Ask a Librarian from links on their libraries’ web sites. This is the single most effective form of marketing because even if users are aware of our service, they won’t be able to use it if they can’t find it. So if the Ask a Librarian link is not easily found on your site, consider moving it to a more visible spot. Alarmingly, only 4% of users were told about Ask a Librarian from their librarian, and we think this number should be higher. This is why we are kicking off our ‘Word of Mouth’ Marketing Campaign with Ask a Librarian Day on Friday. Every person in your library should know about the service and let users know about it.

We also ask our survey respondents for comments and suggestions on how to approve. 81% of users had only positive comments. The following librarians were mentioned specifically in the survey as being helpful, great, fabulous, excellent and very informative.

Collaborative Desk: WarrenF, Phil, Renee, kellib, Juan, Larry C, CarloB, Angeleen, Jennifer (FSU), Margaret W Goldstein FSU, JaimeG, BrianJ from Tampa, Marni, Kalli or Kerri, Justin and Pam
Academic Desk: Ely, Meredith, and Lena

As one user said, “I am completely satisfied with the help I received from Ask A Librarian. I thank you. No improvements needed.” Another user said, “Thank you for providing this important resource.”

Great work everyone! As one customer said, “You guys are doing wonderful so keep up the good work!”

TGIF Tips – 2/13/09, Issue 12

 
There are so many ways to build your chat reference skills in Ask a Librarian – trainings, statewide practice, and, of course, just actually getting in there and working with patrons.  Practice really does make a difference, and the more chats you do, the more comfortable and skilled you become.  Pairing with coworkers when staff numbers permit, or discussing the process and fundamentals of virtual reference with seasoned Ask a Librarian staff – whether through your own library or through instant messaging with your peers inside the Agent Console – all help to better prepare you for staffing the desk. 

Also incredibly helpful:  reading the transcripts of your chats and those of other librarians.  All chat sessions are saved in the system and easily read by those staffing Ask a Librarian.  But don’t feel shy – with over 900 people staffing, we really are in this together!  Reading session transcripts proves to be an invaluable tool at all levels of comfort and skill in Ask a Librarian.  For those just starting out, transcripts offer real-life glimpses into what kinds of questions are asked, the experience of a chat as it progresses from greeting to goodbye, and seeing how other staff deals with different situations.  For those already familiar with virtual reference, transcript reading offers them customer service and reference source viewpoints from varying perspectives – after all, we all have different strengths and weaknesses, and different people will turn to different resources (including many you may not know about or have long forgotten).  In addition to all of the above benefits, regular reading of chat transcripts also helps to promote consistency in great customer service – one of the primary goals of Ask a Librarian.

How to View Chat Transcripts
First, log in to InstantService.  When prompted, make sure that you check your local desk box and the Collaborative/Academic Desk box (depending on which one you cover or wish to read transcripts from).  For example, if you only select your local desk, you will not be able to view transcripts from the Collaborative Desk.  Once on the Account Administration page (the same page where you click on “Agent Console”), click on Reports (either the tab or the link).  Under Reports, you will see various headings, including Agents, Departments, Customer Lookup, etc.

From the Reports page, you have several options to choose from:

To view chat transcripts by staff name, click on the Chat Transcripts link found under the Agents heading.  You can choose one specific agent, or select multiple agents by holding down the Control key as you click each name desired.   

To view chat transcripts by desk (such as Collaborative, Academic, or your own library), click on Chat Transcripts link under the Departments heading.  Your choices shown here will reflect the desks chosen upon login.  For example, if you selected Collaborative Desk and your own local library when logging in, you may click on Collaborative Desk to view all chats from that desk, or click on your library’s name to view only those chats conducted through your local desk.

Regardless of which report you choose to view, you will have several date and time options to choose from – yesterday, last week, last month, or even January 8 from 2:30 to 3 p.m.  Keep in mind that longer reports will take more time to generate in InstantService, so if you want all Collaborative Desk transcripts from January, it will take longer to produce the report than a search for transcripts from this morning.

To read transcripts from the results list, click on the hyperlinked Customer ID number on the left-hand side or on the View Transcript icon on the right.  Keep in mind that clicking on Customer ID will provide a bit more information, including the patron’s initial question and IP address.

You can follow the same route to view your library’s email messages.  To view by staff name, go to the Reports page and click on the Mail Messages link found under the Agents heading.  To view all email transcripts from your library, click on the Mail Messages link found under the Departments heading and select your library before running the report. 

Exemplary Transcripts
Another valuable discovery tool is a special database of super-transcripts readily available for you to read – our Exemplary Reference Award winners and nominees.  Ask a Librarian staff and members of the Quality Assurance Workgroup monitor transcripts to assure the highest levels of customer service, and the QA group rewards three librarians per month for doing an excellent job during a particular chat session.  To peruse winner and nominee transcripts, just log in to the Librarian Toolbox and look for the Exemplary Reference Awards submenu on the left.  In fact, no matter what transcripts you decide to read, it may help to refer to the guidelines that the QA group uses when they make award decisions; a list of those guidelines is found in the same submenu.  Chats are nominated for a number of reasons, but these give you an idea of those things that often move a chat from good to outstanding.

Finally, if you read an awesome transaction, nominate it!  Positive reinforcement goes a long way for learning and personal growth goals, and we love to celebrate your success.  You can submit nominations through both the Librarian Toolbox and the Agent Console, and you can even nominate yourself by choosing the “Nominate Me For Exemplary Reference Award” closing status at the close of an actual session.   

Monitored Practice
Join your coworkers from across the state each Tuesday from 9-10 a.m. for a statewide monitored practice session at info.askalibrarian.org/toolbox/training.asp.
I’ll be there in case you have questions or need a practice partner.

The Director’s Chair Winners Announced!

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