Volume 6, April 15, 2010 for the WSL Updates mailing list Topics include: 1) SUPPORTING STUDENT SUCCESS – MONEY STILL AVAILABLE 2) ASK-WA – ALL YOUR REFERENCE IN ONE PLACE 3) IN THE NEWS – RENEW WASHINGTON 4) ALA ONLINE LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES 5) HOW LIBRARIES STACK UP – 2010 6) NW DOCUMENTARY FILM RELEASED
Evidently neither OCLC nor EBSCO have any problems with secrets leaking out from their companies, because this comes as a huge shock (and us just getting our big statewide NetLibrary thing going)! Basically it looks as though OCLC is moving away from owning/reselling content, and instead focusing more on providing access to other people’s content (a good move, I think). Library Journal has a good paragraph regarding OCLC’s position in this: “It’s a strategic repositioning from hosting and reselling content…
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…
They appear simple, but within their murky depths lurks weird issues you may have never considered. Here’s a quick guide: ANSWERED: If you’re not using this most of the time, you might want to review how you are helping people. You don’t have to stay on the line with them until their paper is written or their family tree thoroughly researched. You SHOULD spend the time, though, to identify why they came to us in the first place, and to…
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…
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…