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Tag: chat

Ref22: When Teens Attack!

Ref22: When Teens Attack!

Did you miss out on the live Ref22 webinar last week? Never fear! All Ref22 sessions are archived and available on the website at Ref22: Archived Sessions. Last week we had Jen Robinson from the Seattle Public Library talking about serving teens (and other “difficult” patrons) via chat. Check it out! The September edition of Ref22 is proud to present, “When Teens Attack!: Tips for dealing with 12-year-olds and other difficult customers on chat reference” (presented in High-Definition PowerPoint). Jen…

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Ask-WA(tch): Stats, Kudos and Comments for Nov 2009

Ask-WA(tch): Stats, Kudos and Comments for Nov 2009

Ask-WA Statistics – November, 2009 Ask-WA slowed down a bit in November compared to October, but since we were super-extra busy in October, that isn’t saying too much. November numbers were still well ahead of September, August, and July numbers, especially in terms of chat sessions requested. In numbers: Email questions received: 3743 Chat sessions requested: 4912 Chat sessions accepted: 3645 Qwidget requests (% of total): 965 (19.6%) As a cooperative we maintained an answering percentage of 74% for the…

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Ask-WA(tch): Stats, Kudos and Comments for Oct 2009

Ask-WA(tch): Stats, Kudos and Comments for Oct 2009

Ask-WA Statistics – October, 2009 Ask-WA picked up significantly in October, beating September and August in every category. Except Qwidget requests, which remained about even, percentage-wise. In numbers: Email questions received: 4287 Chat sessions requested: 5303 Chat sessions accepted: 4343 Qwidget requests (% of total): 1282 (24.2%) As a cooperative we maintained an answering percentage of 81.9% for the month, which is down nearly 5% from September (probably because of the increased traffic), but remains well over the goal rate…

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Ask-WA(tch): Stats, Kudos and Comments for Sept 2009

Ask-WA(tch): Stats, Kudos and Comments for Sept 2009

Ask-WA Statistics – September, 2009 Ask-WA maintained a busy service during the month of September, and chat picked up slightly over August as schools came back into session. In numbers: Email questions received: 3707 Chat sessions requested: 3457 Chat sessions accepted: 2993 Qwidget requests (% of total): 848 (24.5%) As a cooperative we maintained an answering percentage of 86.6% for the month, which is a good 2% over last month, and remains well over the goal rate of 75%. Keep…

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Join Ask-WA for Free in 2010

Join Ask-WA for Free in 2010

Dear libraries of Washington State, Are your users on the internet? I’m willing to bet that a lot of them are. Do they use chat software to communicate? IM tools like ICQ and AIM have been around since 1996/1997 (respectively), and companies like Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo! all provide IM services. Chat and IM aren’t new, and lots of people use them to communicate with friends, family, and colleagues. Chat and email are probably the two most-used methods for online…

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Ask-WA Quality Tip: Updating Flash/Java/Web Browsers

Ask-WA Quality Tip: Updating Flash/Java/Web Browsers

If QuestionPoint seems more buggy than useful to you, it may be because certain settings on your computer are causing issues. Here are a few tips that may help improve your QuestionPoint experience. Update Java and Flash You can get the latest version of Java here: http://www.java.com/en/download/manual.jsp – and the latest version of Flash here: http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/. Keeping both of these updated will improve your QP performance (generally), and will help you get the most out of your web experiences in…

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Ask-WA: Tips & Tricks for Serving Multiple Patrons in Chat

Ask-WA: Tips & Tricks for Serving Multiple Patrons in Chat

One of the benefits of being part of a large national cooperative is that we can share expertise not only within the state, but globally. And by share, of course, I mean that we can benefit from the hard work all the other states are doing while we sit around and … Okay, so we’re working hard too. Anyway, AskAway Best Practices meetings cover Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Illinois virtual reference cooperatives, and they rotate monthly to cover an issue pertinent…

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Ask-WA: Quality Tips of the Week

Ask-WA: Quality Tips of the Week

Some tips of the week for staffing Ask-WA: Washington’s Statewide Virtual Reference Cooperative. Tip #1: No such thing as anonymous follow-up Please make sure that there is a way for the patron’s library (even if that is you) to follow-up before you close a session and before you code for follow-up. Even when patrons submit an email address with their question, it is worth checking to make sure that is the correct address at which they would like to be…

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QuestionPoint Trainings for Ask-WA (and a Survey)

QuestionPoint Trainings for Ask-WA (and a Survey)

Over the last two weeks we had some very successful QuestionPoint training sessions online using Wimba software. At least, I’d like to think they were very successful. Thanks to everyone who attended the sessions; I enjoyed your great questions and hope the trainings were useful and worthwhile. If you attended either (or both) of the trainings, PLEASE fill out the survey linked below. It should take you about 10 minutes and will be immensely helpful for me, both for statistical…

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