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 Robinson of The Seattle Public Library attempts to explain the reasons why teens (and tweens) are the way they are, and presents some clever ways to best help the under-18 set via online chat.

Virtual and physical reference librarians and any library staff that regularly serve teens will find this session of interest.

Read the rest of this entry »

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 month, which is down significantly from previous months, and falls just below our goal percentage of 75%. This is due to some drag in the public cooperative, but I’m sure we can dust ourselves off and bring the numbers back up! Chat continues to dominate email, though both services remain well-used. Qwidget traffic dropped this month to just under 20%, down from a fairly consistent 25% in previous months.

The word cloud highlights some of the most-used words left in survey comments throughout November. Some great words this month include: wonderful, excellent, fast, quick, great, impressed, and love.

Read the rest of this entry »

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 of 75%. Keep up the good work! The email aspect of the service continues to enjoy plenty of traffic, though the chat service blossomed this month and beat email by over 1,000 questions. Qwidget traffic remains consistent at around 1/4th of the total chat traffic.

The word cloud highlights some of the most-used words left in survey comments throughout October. The larger the word, the more it was used, so it’s nice to be able to easily pick out (because of their size), words like: great, helpful, wonderful, excellent, useful, impressed, nice, easy, and love.

Read the rest of this entry »

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 up the good work! The email aspect of the service remains robust, and continues to outpace chat ever-so-slightly. Qwidget traffic remains around 1/4th of the total chat traffic.

The word cloud highlights some of the most-used words left in survey comments throughout September.

Read the rest of this entry »

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 communication.

So, can your users employ these methods to contact your library? To ask you questions? To tap into your expertise?

Read the rest of this entry »

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 general. I’d suggest making sure these are up-to-date on whatever public access terminals you are offering as well, so that your patrons don’t have any problems using the service either.

Fix Your Browser (or Try A New One)

Most of you are probably using Internet Explorer, which is fine. I’d recommend using an iteration of IE7 (and NOT upgrading to IE8 quite yet), and following the set-up procedures (for chat only) listed in this document: http://www5.oclc.org/questionpoint/Chat_setup.pdf.

If IE isn’t working very well for you, you might consider trying QuestionPoint using Firefox (which is what I use and without any problems) or Google Chrome (which I have not used for QP but hey it’s worth a shot). I find that while IE requires some setup, Firefox works out of the box (as it were), which is nice.

No matter which internet browser you use, you generally have some fine-tuning options you might consider. For instance, deciding whether new pages open in windows or tabs could greatly improve your QP experience, depending on which you prefer. In Firefox I like to go in any de-select all my warning messages (which are just annoying pop-ups that get in my way), since I know I’m not engaging in any risky activity anyway. Similar options are available in whichever browser you choose to use, generally.

Check for Background Applications

If QuestionPoint seems to be running particularly slow, you might see what applications your computer has running in the background. Maybe your anti-virus program has chosen that moment to run a full scan of your machine. Maybe a desktop search program is in the middle of indexing your hard drive. The fewer things your computer has going on, the more resources it will have to run QuestionPoint smoothly and without error. You can usually see the resource hogs down in your bottom-right taskbar, and while you shouldn’t disable your anti-virus, you can certainly tell it to scan later, when you’re less busy.

Still Not Working Right?

If you feel like you’ve done everything right and you’re still having issues, don’t just put up with them. Call QP tech support and see if they can’t help you find a solution. They’re available 7a-9p EST at 800-848-5800, or you can email them at [email protected]. If you don’t need support, but want to leave them feedback (QP sucks, I love QP, omgqwidgetrolluplzkthx!, etc), you can use their feedback form located here: https://www3.oclc.org/app/questionpoint/comments/.

And as always, if you have any issues, you are always welcome to share them with me. I don’t have a magic wand (unfortunately), but you may find me to be an excellent commiserator. I am even helpful, occasionally.

Have your own tips for QuestionPoint success? Please share them in the comments!

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 to VR. On February 19th they covered a great topic: “Tips & Tricks For Serving Multiple Patrons in Chat.” Presented by backup librarians Louise Green and John Dey, the subject is likened to keeping multiple dishes going in a kitchen and offers some excellent methods for dealing with multiple chat sessions at once, and in very clear terms.

Helping multiple patrons is an effective use of your time, especially when covering thosbe hours in the 24/7 cooperative. Even if you think you’re not interested in helping more than one patron at a time, I recommend checking out the session anyway; maybe it will change your mind!

You can find the session here: http://tinyurl.com/askawaytips-feb192009. The presentation by John and Louise begins at about the 23:40 mark.

If you’re interested in reaping more rewards from AskAway’s hard work (and who isn’t), you can check out some of their other Best Practices meeting sessions on their Best Practices wiki: http://askaway.pbwiki.com/Best+Practices. I think that, in general, Best Practices sessions are a great idea, and something we’ll likely start doing here in Washington as well. Stay tuned!

Thanks to Joy Schwarz for sharing this on the QP24/7ADVBOARD-L email list, and to the AskAway libraries (and John and Louise) for sharing their expertise. We’ll return the favor sometime, honest!

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 contacted. Many patrons, especially those coming through the Qwidget, do not submit their email addresses at all when they ask their questions. If you are planning on coding a question for follow-up, ask the patron for their email address before the session ends so that follow-up will, in fact, be possible.

Tip #2: Don’t let your descriptive nature get the best of you

At the end of a session you have the opportunity to add descriptive codes. This is like cataloguing for questions, and something about it calls out to your inner librarian nature. I know, I feel it too, like a siren’s call saying “Come organize me.” The thing is, you should really only add descriptive codes to questions from YOUR patrons. Every library uses different descriptive codes differently, and it is up to the patron’s library, every time, to decide which codes are appropriate. You may, of course, continue to add descriptive codes for sessions from your own patrons. To fill the chasm left by not describing other sessions, I recommend taking up water colors, or perhaps writing some nice haiku.

Tip #3: “I need closure!”

What goes for tip #2 goes for tip #3 as well; please don’t close questions on your question list unless they are questions from YOUR patrons. By closing them you are hindering that patron’s library’s question review process. I know, I know, you can’t stand the clutter and really, really want to keep things tidy and neat. Fear not, for you can simply make it so that those finished sessions from other patron’s libraries no longer show up in your libraries “Active” questions list. QuestionPoint explains how over on their blog (section 1.1): http://questionpoint.blogs.com/questionpoint_247_referen/2007/09/maintenance-ins.html.

Now you’ll just have to figure out what to do with all that extra space!

If you have any thoughts or questions, please feel free to discuss them on the Ask-WA email list, leave some comments, or you can always shoot me an email. I’ll get back to you just as soon as I finish this latest lyric poem on the life and death of the reference interview.

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 purposes and for planning future trainings to your needs.

QP Training Survey: http://tinyurl.com/qptrainsurvey

If you know someone who attended these trainings but is not on the Ask-WA email list and doesn’t read this blog, please forward this along to them so they may complete the survey.

If you didn’t make the live training sessions, below are links to the archived sessions. After clicking the link, select “Participant Login”, type in WA_TrainingRoom1 for the room and whatever you like for your name. If you haven’t run the Wimba wizard on your computer yet, you should do so before trying to view the archived session. If you have already run the wizard, there is a link below the wizard button (about 2 inches down) allowing you to skip the process.

QuestionPoint Training #1 (Wimba Archived Session):

http://tinyurl.com/qptrain01

QuestionPoint Training #2 (Wimba Archived Sessions):

http://tinyurl.com/qptrain02

If you have any thoughts or questions, or if you would like to suggest any material for future trainings, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

Thanks!