Submitted by admin-boss on
"by transforming virtual reference (VR) service encounters into relationship-building opportunities, librarians can better leverage the positive feelings people have for libraries"
- OCLC news release
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The minutes from the October 3 Advisory Committee meeting are now available here.
Also available is the Coordinator's Report.
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AskAway receives many comments from users who fill out the exit survey, the vast majority overwhelmingly positive about the service. From time to time, though, we do receive some constructive feedback on how to further improve AskAway. Often even this type of feedback follows high praise for AskAway, for example, “The online service has worked perfectly for me, I've used it a few times and have always encountered friendly helpful people on the other end. What a great idea! The only thing I would suggest is to perhaps spread the word more.”
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A big thank you to the AskAwayers who have recently sent assignment alerts and announcements to the listserv! Receiving a head's up about significant changes or assignments in other institutions gives AskAwayers a chance to familiarize themselves with relevant materials before being asked a question, making it a smoother experience for the librarian and better service AskAway users.
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What kinds of questions do we answer?
We are open to all questions, and will provide help with course-related research tasks e.g. finding books, journals, articles, etc..
--Service Guidelines for Service Providers
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Increasingly, when Safari users click on a PDF full text icon in a licensed database, they get a “missing plug-in error”. This is due to an incompatibility between the Safari 5.1 browser and the Adobe PDF viewer plug-in. EBSCO support has posted a FAQ on the problem, and they suggest that users install a plug-in as a workaround until the software issue is solved.
Submitted by admin-boss on
Thanks everyone in advance for your support of our biology undergraduates.
We are starting to see BIOL 140 and BIOL 200 students at our Woodward Reference Desk in and we anticipate they will be visiting AskAway soon too!
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The AskAway Portal - Staff Tools has a new feature: a button that will automatically create an email addressed to the listserv saying that AskAway is swamped. All you have to do to is press "send". The button is located in the section called "Tools for your shift". This feature was requested by a service provider, and we are pleased to make it available; we're always happy to hear new ideas or suggestions.
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Columbia Bible College, one of Canada's premier Christian institutions, joined AskAway this fall. Columbia Bible College (CBC) is located in the Fraser Valley, and offers 4-year Bachelor of Arts programs as well as 2-year diplomas and certificates.
Library Director Richard Thiessen and Associate Librarian Anne Andres attended AskAway training and are currently providing 3 staff hours per week. Links to AskAway are being added to the new CBC website, so AskAwayers can expect to see CBC students using AskAway in the coming weeks.
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The AskAway Coordinator's Report from Monday October 3 is now available on the BC ELN website here: http://www.eln.bc.ca/askaway/documents/AACoordRep20111003.pdf
Enjoy!
-- Reece, BC ELN