Ask a Librarian Blog » Front Page News http://www.tblc.org/askalibrarianblog Florida's Virtual Reference Service, managed by TBLC Tue, 03 Nov 2009 14:18:18 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 en hourly 1 The Director’s Chair video contest – ready to see who won? http://www.tblc.org/askalibrarianblog/2008/02/13/the-director%e2%80%99s-chair-video-contest-%e2%80%93-ready-to-see-who-won/ http://www.tblc.org/askalibrarianblog/2008/02/13/the-director%e2%80%99s-chair-video-contest-%e2%80%93-ready-to-see-who-won/#comments Wed, 13 Feb 2008 13:10:28 +0000 Diana http://www.tblc.org/askalibrarianblog/2008/02/13/the-director%e2%80%99s-chair-video-contest-%e2%80%93-ready-to-see-who-won/

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Thanks to your votes, we have determined the winners of Ask a Librarian’s The Director’s Chair video contest!

Drum roll please…
GRAND PRIZE: Julie, a student at Seminole Ridge High School in Palm Beach County

SECOND PLACE: Karman, a homeschooled student from Lake County

THIRD PLACE: Jake, a student at Fernandina Beach High School in Nassau County

CONGRATULATIONS TO OUR WINNERS & THANK YOU TO ALL THE LIBRARIES THAT PROMOTED THE CONTEST!

To view & comment on the winning videos scroll down on this blog or visit, the contest page.

If you have any questions, please contact me

]]> http://www.tblc.org/askalibrarianblog/2008/02/13/the-director%e2%80%99s-chair-video-contest-%e2%80%93-ready-to-see-who-won/feed/ 0 The Director’s Chair – First Place Winner http://www.tblc.org/askalibrarianblog/2008/02/12/the-directors-chair-first-place-winner/ http://www.tblc.org/askalibrarianblog/2008/02/12/the-directors-chair-first-place-winner/#comments Tue, 12 Feb 2008 14:13:15 +0000 Diana http://www.tblc.org/askalibrarianblog/2008/02/12/the-directors-chair-first-place-winner/

]]> http://www.tblc.org/askalibrarianblog/2008/02/12/the-directors-chair-first-place-winner/feed/ 1 The Director’s Chair – Second Place Winner http://www.tblc.org/askalibrarianblog/2008/02/12/the-directors-chair-second-place-winner/ http://www.tblc.org/askalibrarianblog/2008/02/12/the-directors-chair-second-place-winner/#comments Tue, 12 Feb 2008 14:12:40 +0000 Diana http://www.tblc.org/askalibrarianblog/2008/02/12/the-directors-chair-second-place-winner/

]]> http://www.tblc.org/askalibrarianblog/2008/02/12/the-directors-chair-second-place-winner/feed/ 0 The Director’s Chair – Third Place Winner http://www.tblc.org/askalibrarianblog/2008/02/12/the-directors-chair-third-place-winner/ http://www.tblc.org/askalibrarianblog/2008/02/12/the-directors-chair-third-place-winner/#comments Tue, 12 Feb 2008 14:10:44 +0000 Diana http://www.tblc.org/askalibrarianblog/2008/02/12/the-directors-chair-third-place-winner/

]]> http://www.tblc.org/askalibrarianblog/2008/02/12/the-directors-chair-third-place-winner/feed/ 0 New Libraries on Ask a Librarian http://www.tblc.org/askalibrarianblog/2008/01/04/new-libraries-on-ask-a-librarian/ http://www.tblc.org/askalibrarianblog/2008/01/04/new-libraries-on-ask-a-librarian/#comments Fri, 04 Jan 2008 12:55:23 +0000 Diana http://www.tblc.org/askalibrarianblog/2008/01/04/new-libraries-on-ask-a-librarian/ I am really excited to announce in January, two new libraries will begin staffing Ask a Librarian: 

Fort Walton Beach Library.

and Warner Southern College 

]]> http://www.tblc.org/askalibrarianblog/2008/01/04/new-libraries-on-ask-a-librarian/feed/ 0 Service out on Sunday, Dec. 16th until 1 PM http://www.tblc.org/askalibrarianblog/2007/12/11/service-out-on-sunday-dec-16th-until-1-pm/ http://www.tblc.org/askalibrarianblog/2007/12/11/service-out-on-sunday-dec-16th-until-1-pm/#comments Tue, 11 Dec 2007 21:58:49 +0000 Diana http://www.tblc.org/askalibrarianblog/2007/12/11/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.

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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.

]]> http://www.tblc.org/askalibrarianblog/2007/12/11/november-statistics-available/feed/ 0 Training schedule http://www.tblc.org/askalibrarianblog/2007/11/01/training-schedule/ http://www.tblc.org/askalibrarianblog/2007/11/01/training-schedule/#comments Thu, 01 Nov 2007 20:13:43 +0000 Diana http://www.tblc.org/askalibrarianblog/2007/11/01/training-schedule/ I have developed an annual training schedule to help you plan ahead for when training will be available in your area. This is the full day of training for librarians who are new to the service or would like to take the training again.

There will probably be additional dates as new libraries join the service or as special needs arise. I’ve indicated several workshops that have tentative dates pending training room availability. I will confirm these dates and locations as they become available.

There is a special opportunity on April 15th and 22nd from 1-3 PM at the Tampa Bay Library Consortium for update/refresher workshops. If you are coming to St. Petersburg for FLA on the 22nd we may be on your way if you’d like to attend. For more information or to register follow this link for April 15th http://www.tblc.org/ws_info.php?ws=583 and this one for April 22nd http://www.tblc.org/ws_info.php?ws=584

Here are the dates and links for more information and to register for the full day of training. All workshops are from 9:00-3:30:

December 13th
Tampa Bay Library Consortium
Tampa
http://www.tblc.org/ws_info.php?ws=579

January 4th
Tallahassee Community College
Tallahassee
http://www.tblc.org/ws_info.php?ws=593

February 1st
Florida Gulf Coast University
Fort Myers
http://www.tblc.org/ws_info.php?ws=580

February 19th
Palm Beach Community College
Lake Worth
http://www.tblc.org/ws_info.php?ws=594

April 2nd & 3rd
Northeast Florida Library Information Network
Orange Park
April 2nd
http://www.tblc.org/ws_info.php?ws=581
April 3rd
http://www.tblc.org/ws_info.php?ws=582

May 20th
Central Florida Library Cooperative
Maitland
http://www.tblc.org/ws_info.php?ws=585

Tentative:
August, Santa Fe Community College, Gainesville

September 17th
Nova Southeastern University
Ft. Lauderdale
http://www.tblc.org/ws_info.php?ws=586

Registration for all the training sessions is also available from here http://www.tblc.org/aaltraining

Please let me know if you have any questions. I hope to see you soon at one of these sessions!

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What a great month! Ask a Librarian is continuing to grow and develop. This month we successfully kicked off our Academic Desk and had over 500 students use the desk.    Overall, we had an increase of 25% from last September in live chat sessions and a 28% increase from last month. Queue logouts also remained low. 

More detailed report is available in pdf and jpg.

Further, a summary report for zipcodes is available here.  If you need a further breakdown of statistics, let us know. 

]]> http://www.tblc.org/askalibrarianblog/2007/10/04/september-statistics-available/feed/ 0 Software fully functional http://www.tblc.org/askalibrarianblog/2007/09/13/software-fully-functional/ http://www.tblc.org/askalibrarianblog/2007/09/13/software-fully-functional/#comments Thu, 13 Sep 2007 18:59:09 +0000 Diana http://www.tblc.org/askalibrarianblog/2007/09/13/software-fully-functional/ Thank you for your patience over the past weeks while we worked out some technical problems with Ask a Librarian.

I am happy to report that the system has now been returned to its full functionality. Thanks to CCLA Staff (especially Doug and Bruce) and Docutek the problem has been fixed. Statistics, patron login parameters in emails and chat sessions are all restored.

We are continuing to work to resolve the cause of this issue. It was caused, in part, by our online statistics database. Whenever a certain statistic was called for it would require enough resources to bring the server to a standstill. One of the things we have done to eliminate this problem is to only keep recent statistics online. Older stats have been archived and we can retrieve anything prior to April 1st, 2007 for you that you might need.

Since we have discovered that looking up statistics can slow down our system so dramatically, we need to ask you to limit your use of the statistics module to early mornings, before we open at 10 AM, whenever possible. This will help keep things running smoothly for everyone using live chat. We appreciate your cooperation with this and hope that it doesn’t cause too much inconvenience.

Please let us know if you still experience any problems with the system or notice anything unusual.

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