When you think of libraries, I bet you think of books. Don’t worry, everyone does. If you’re a library power-user, you might be aware of free internet access, computer use, and some fun programs. What you might not be aware of is that libraries have powerful information experts eagerly waiting for you to ask them your toughest questions. Getting the best answers to your questions just got a lot easier with Ask-WA. More than 60 Washington libraries, backed by an…
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…
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…
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…