Submitted by leahh on
The following call for survey participants with collaborative virtual reference service experience was sent to the Digitial Reference listserv. Interested parties can access the survey from the link below. Contact Emily Weak at emilyweak@yahoo.com with any questions.
Hello,
Are you a librarian who has personal experience working in a collaborative virtual reference service?
Submitted by admin-boss on
From the OCLC QuestionPoint team:
We invite you to attend a free webinar, Finding your users online, May
17 at 1 PM ET.
Seeking Synchronicity found that one of the biggest obstacles to a
successful virtual reference service was getting users to simply know
the service existed. How do you find your users online? How do they find
you?
Submitted by admin-boss on
AskAway's March form fields, usage statistics and survey information are now available on the AskAway Portal.
Compared to last March, we engaged in 7% more sessions. This translates to over 230 additional sessions, and a total of 3758 sessions, or over 118 sessions per day.
March usage statistics are available here: http://www.eln.bc.ca/askaway/index.php?page=statistics#usage
Submitted by admin-boss on
ProQuest has now added the option to embed custom widgets into their databases!
UPDATE: The option to delete the qwidget is now available!
Already have an AskAway Qwidget in your EBSCO databases or library web pages? Why not check-out the new option in ProQuest to add a custom widget to all your standard-platform ProQuest databases like CBCA (the options to select individual databases or non-standard platforms like Chadwyck are not currently available).
Submitted by admin-boss on
Knowing when to end an AskAway session can be tough sometimes. When AskAway is swamped, or the patron has been uncommunicative for awhile, or perhaps appears to be disconnecting from the session... How can we successfully close the session for the patron?
Submitted by admin-boss on
The AskAway Advisory Committee meeting minutes from February 12 are now posted on the AskAway Portal here. The meeting discussed the BCcampus Funding Request, 2012/13 Budget & Service Support Fee, Software Selection Committee membership, and other topics, including an update on text message reference pilots.
Submitted by admin-boss on
The Oregon statewide reference service is hosting the Oregon Virtual Reference Summit in late May, open to all interested.
Here is the announcement:
I'm the coordinator for Oregon's statewide reference service and I am inviting you to register for our annual conference, the Oregon Virtual Reference Summit, www.oregonlibraries.net/summit. Though we admit to a regional focus, the conference is open to everyone.
Submitted by admin-boss on
The first AskAway statistics and survey information of 2012 are now available on the AskAway Portal.
Compared to January, 2011, we engaged in an average of 10% more sessions per day. January of last year's daily average was 94.3 sessions, this year's was 103.3.
January usage statistics are available here.
Submitted by admin-boss on
We have added some new scripts in response to suggestions from AskAwayers.
Here they are, along with some context.
Close - Left Session
I haven’t heard from you in a while, so I am going to close this session. Thanks for using AskAway, and please feel free to come back if you have further questions.
When a user has not responded for an extended period of time, this is a quick way to let them know you are ending the session and inviting them to return again.
Submitted by admin-boss on
Screenr is a great new tool that many Ask-Awayers might find useful. It's a webcasting product which allows you to create videos of website navigation. This type of thing can be helpful in a reference situation where there is a complicated set of steps a chatter must follow in order to navigate to a particular article or database, or in cases where the chatter is having trouble understanding your directions.