Volume 6, July 1, 2010 for the WSL Updates mailing list

Topics include:

1) WASHINGTON READS – WASHINGTON AS PLACE

2) FIRST TUESDAYS – ELLUMINATION!

3) FREE ONLINE CLASSES FROM WSL AND AMIGOS

4) WSL OFFERS FUNDING FOR ARSL-ABOS CONFERENCE

5) OPPORTUNITY TO ORDER DISCOUNTED FLIP CAMCORDERS

6) COME TO THE FAIR

7) E-GOVERNMENT TOOLKIT RELEASED

8) TEN SOCIAL MEDIA TIPS & SECRETS

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Volume 6, June 17, 2010 for the WSL Updates mailing list

Topics include:

1) MORE ELLUMINATION!

2) SUBSCRIBE TO THE LIBRARY CLIPPINGS NEWS SERVICE

3) LSSC PORTFOLIO MENTORS AND EVALUATORS SOUGHT

4) GETTING STARTED WITH A SOCIAL MEDIA PLAN

5) BEYOND SLIDESHOWS – TIPS FOR WEB-BASED PRESENTATIONS

6) LEGAL REFERENCE IN NON-LAW LIBRARIES

7) ATTEND THE OCLC AMERICAS REGIONAL COUNCIL MEETING

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Volume 6, May 27, 2010 for the WSL Updates mailing list

Topics include:

1) NO LIBRARY IS AN ISLAND – THE 2010 PNLA/WLA ANNUAL CONFERENCE

2) WASHINGTON LIBRARIES RECEIVE FREE LYRASIS TRIAL MEMBERSHIP

3) BRUSH UP YOUR PR SKILLS – JUNE FIRST TUESDAYS

4) FREE BOOK – GARLIC AND SAPPHIRES

5) TECHNOLOGY AND ITS IMPACT ON THE FUTURE OF LIBRARIES

6) POWER TO THE USER – INTERACTIVE ONLINE REFERENCE SOURCES

7) RE-TOOLING FRONTLINE STAFF WITH E-GOVERNMENT RESOURCES

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What: Ref22: “Using Screencasts in Virtual Reference”
When: Tuesday, October 13th, 8:30 – 9:30 am PST
Where: Wimba WA_TrainingRoom1

Tuesday, October 13th, we will host our very first webinar in what will be a monthly series called Ref22 (it’s “22” because it’s the 2nd Tuesday of every month). Ref22 is meant for reference and virtual reference librarians in particular, and will cover a variety of interesting and practical topics.

This month we are happy to feature Lauren Ray, Educational Outreach Services Librarian at the University of Washington Libraries, who will present on “Using Screencasts in Virtual Reference”.

The webinar will begin at 8:30am, and will last approximately one hour (including time for questions). It will take place via Wimba, and an archived version will be available if you can’t make the live session.

Instructions for Wimba are here: http://www.secstate.wa.gov/library/libraries/training/wimba.aspx.

If you have speakers or topics you’d like covered in future sessions, please get in touch. In the meantime, hope to see you there!

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?

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Ask-WA Statistics – August, 2009

Ask-WA maintained a busy service during the month of August, with email again outpacing chat service. In numbers:

• Email questions received: 3821
• Chat sessions requested: 3067
• Chat sessions accepted: 2599
• Qwidget requests (% of total): 789 (25.7%)

As a cooperative we maintained an answering percentage of 84.7% for the month, which is lower than in July but remains well over the goal rate of 75%. Keep up the good work! The email aspect of the service remains robust, and outpaced chat for the month. Qwidget traffic remains around 1/4th of the total chat traffic, with the main users continuing to be Seattle Public and UW Libraries.

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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 even larger network of libraries worldwide, have teamed up so that you can ask your questions anytime, 24-hours-a-day, 7-days-a-week, and get great answers from a live librarian.

Are you a college student looking for that last-minute resource for your 8am paper? Librarians are available, even at 3am, to help you find the right resources and ace your course. Need help applying for jobs, finding good schools, or learning new skills? Ask-WA has you covered. Need to settle a bet? We’ll help. Want to find some good summer reading? We love recommending books!

Ask-WA connects you live to your librarians … whenever, wherever you need them. Try it now @ http://ask.wa.gov/.

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!

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!