Promoting The Director’s Chair at Your Library

Are you brainstorming yet?  Ask a Librarian has kicked off its third annual Director’s Chair contest.   The Director’s Chair is a contest to have high school students create our next PSA.   We hope to get the PSA airplay throughout the state.     The past years have given us some incredible PSA’s – check them out!

Some ideas for your promoting include -

- Posting the flyer in your library
- Talk to your teens about it- maybe help create a space and time for them to work on the video
- Place a link to the Director’s Chair on your web site.  (logos are here )
- Post to your teen blog about the contest

Need a post?! Steal ours (feel free to edit this to work for you) -

Calling all Florida high school students!

Make your directorial debut with The Director’s Chair Contest

What is The Director’s Chair?
The Director’s Chair is a video contest for Florida high school students. Create a 30-second video promoting Ask a Librarian for the chance to win a digital video camera, a digital camera or 8GB MP3 player.

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 Vimeo by January 24, 2010, 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 Vimeo submission instructions, prizes, official contest rules, release forms and more.

What are you planning to do?

July/August 2009 Exemplary Reference Awards

The Quality Assurance Workgroup has been hard at work and has awarded the following transcripts for July/August 2009 Exemplary Reference Awards of the Month. Transcripts were awarded in three categories: Best Detailed Chat, Best Brief Chat, and Best Teaching Chat.

Jennifer Kepple, Ft Walton Beach Public Library will receive a gift card to Amazon.com for her Exemplary Detailed Chat and all three winners will receive a certificate at a presentation at this next year’s annual Florida Library Association Conference.

Detailed Brief Chat
Charlyn Hill, Citrus County Library.
Charlyn gets exactly what the patron needs very quickly and educates them about a familiar website which is sure to help them with their future work. Thank you Charlyn!

Detailed Exemplary Chat
Jennifer Kepple, Ft Walton Beach Public Library.
Jennifer tackles some really tricky topics (time zones and air pressure conversions) with patience, humor, and persistence. This is one you read and think, as my Quaker Grandfather would have put it, “Better thee, than me.”

Teaching Exemplary Chat
Lora Glass, Niceville Public.
Lora conducted a nice teaching chat with a new (and confused) college student attending Miami-Dade College. The student was trying to find full text articles in their library’s resource databases. Lora G walked the student through the mechanics of doing a search and additionally helped the student narrow down their subject topic. The student was very grateful for Lora’s assistance and expertise.

Selecting the top transcript in each category can often be a hard process with so many terrific sessions to choose from. Below are the other people who were nominated this month by themselves, co-workers or the quality assurance workgroup.

Detailed Brief Chat

• Kristin Corbin, Suwannee River Regional Library
• Jamie Goldman, Ask a Librarian Intern
• Sandra Lee Hawes, St. Leo University
• Jodie Nehrt, Jacksonville Public Library
• Jorge Perez, St. Petersburg College
• Meredith Semones, University of Central Florida
• Susan Smith, Hodges University
• Anne Robert, Jacksonville Public Library
• Deirdre Tolia, Leroy Collins Leon County Public Library
• Isabel Toolsie, Palm Beach County Library System
• Ken Venet, Barry University
• Riva Wharton, Hodges University
• Lori Yeager, Osceola County Library System

Detailed Exemplary Chat

• Tatiana Alvarez, St. Petersburg Public Library
• Kathleen Coleman, Tallahassee Community College
• Kristin Corbin, Suwannee River Regional Library
• Chris Culp, Alachua County Library District
• Catherine Hodges, Florida State College at Jacksonville
• Rachel Mulvihill, University of Central Florida
• Warren French, Orange County Library System
• Carlos Pedemonte, Tampa-Hillsborough County Public Library System
• Laura Ramirez, Nova Southeastern University
• Sheila Small, St Lucie County Library System
• Greg Sidberry, Nova Southeastern University
• Susan Smith, Hodges University
• Katie Tyler, Winter Park Public Library

Teaching Exemplary Chat

• Neil Linger, Broward College
• Kristen Faulkner, Polk College
• Renee Patterson, Ask a Librarian Intern
• Kimberly Reycraft, Florida Gulf Coast University Library
• Elaine Sabol, Indian River State College
• Susan Smith, Hodges University
• Judi Tidwell, Broward College

Don’t forget to nominate your or your co-workers sessions in the Ask a Librarian Toolbox at: http://info.askalibrarian.org or when closing a live chat session.

Congratulations to all those nominated this month.

Ask a Librarian has a New Look!

We are excited to announce that Ask a Librarian’s new user interface is now live!

Please check your library’s pages and report any issues to us, and be sure to show off the new interface to your patrons.

Migration News! New Page To be Debuted Friday!!!

I am very excited to announce a major change to Ask a Librarian. On Friday (October 9th), Ask a Librarian will be debuting a new look for our users and migrating from a windows platform to a Linux platform.

The page features a slideshow, a customized portal for each library as well as a ‘what are people asking’ feature showing recently asked questions.

Your Opinion Counts!

Please take a moment to complete a survey about your experience over the past year with Ask a Librarian. Your feedback is vital!

The survey is at:  http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=XfdnIaHxHz6_2bHl8Ljuj94w_3d_3d

The Director’s Chair Kicks Off!!

I am excited to announce Ask a Librarian is kicking off our 3^rd annual Director’s Chair contest.    We are looking for our next PSA.  

What is The Director’s Chair?
The Director’s Chair is a video contest for Florida high school students.
Create a 30-second video promoting Ask a Librarian for a chance to win some great prizes.

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 submit it here between Oct. 1, 2009, and Jan. 24, 2010 (11:59 p.m.), 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.

The contest details are online at:  http://www.tblc.org/aal/directorschair/

 

Promotional flyers can be downloaded and printed from:   http://www.tblc.org/aal/directorschair/.  If you want me to mail you copies, please email me.  

Please promote this within your library, on your blogs, MySpace and Facebook pages! Help us get the word out about this exciting contest.

September Statistics

WOW! We had our BEST month ever. Ask a Librarian librarians answered 4,106 live chat questions and over 1,000 email questions for our first month with over 5,000 questions. UCF had 496 sessions last month—mainly on their local desk!

September also saw a lot of training, practicing and working to get the new software– Instant
Service up and running. We trained over 660 people in 44 training sessions online and in-person.

September was a great month and we expect this trend to continue on the new software platform.

A more detailed report is available here:  Summary Report

Email By Entry Point

ChatByEntryPoint

UsagebyReportedZipcode

Great Work Everyone!!!!