Tuesday, September 14th, 2010
10:30am - 3pm
Calvert Library, Prince Frederick Branch [click here for information on virtual participation]
850 Costley Way
Prince Frederick, MD 20678
(410) 535-0291
(click here for directions from the library website)
| 10 - 10:30 | Set up and help time for virtual meeting participants |
| 10:30 - 11am |
Welcome & Introductions Montgomery College's new Liaison |
| 11 - 11:15 | State of AskUsNow! |
| 11:15 - 11:20 | Social Media Strategy |
| 11:20 - 11:30 | UX Update (Jess A, Jess C, Amy S, Amy F) |
| 11:30 - noon | Discussion: Dummy Library Cards |
| noon - 12:45 | lunch |
| 12:45 - 1:15 | Discussion: Creating a Star Transcript Team |
| 1:15 - 1:45 |
Live Law chat and Special Library activity |
| 1:45 - 2:15 |
Discussion: Descriptive Codes |
| 2:15 - 2:30 | Discussion: Mentoring |
| 2:30 - 3pm | Open Discussion: How's It Going |
There is ample free parking in the lot next to the library.
For lunch: Panera Bread is across the parking lot, Mama Lucia’s, Nicks of Calvert Deli (subs for 3.99), Five Guys, Salaritas, Ruby Tuesdays are down the next block, Pizza Hut (take out only) and Crystal Palace-chinese buffet. As always, feel free to bring your lunch!
If anyone would like to carpool to this meeting, please use the listserv to coordinate that- just email mdaskusnow@askusnow.info. We’ll have a lot of people passing each other on the roads down to Calvert and it'd be nice to coordinate some gas and environment saving. Plus, it gives us all an opportunity to have more time to get to know each other.
I will be heading down early (for arrival between 9:45 and 10am) but am coming from the Laurel, Anne Arundel County area if anyone wants to travel with me and doesn’t mind the early start and late ending.
June
9 - As per the discussion at the liaison meeting about getting a substitution for AskUsNow! shifts you are unable to cover, the insitution requesting the sub and the institution covering the hour are now responsible for updating the Google Substitution Calendar. Procedure can be found on the sub schedule page. Julie has the password which was also sent in this day's listserv message.
9 - Julie forwarded a message from the 24/7 Reference cooperative about adding your summer reading information and events to the policy pages.
11 - QuestionPoint install with new features coming this Sunday. Install notes at http://askusnow.info/staff/node/321
11 - After finding a mis-represented time zone in one of the partner institutions settings, Julie asked everyone to check their timezones:
Log in to QP as an admin, click on "profile" from the "select service" drop down menu in the upper right corner and then click "institution info" under the "institution services" tab. And please make sure your timezone is listed as "(GMT -5) Eastern Time"
11 - Message asking those libraries located near Baltimore County to keep an eye out for a representative AskUsNow! customer that can attend the 300k celebration.
15 - QuestionPoint had a webinar about reports. Notes were posted to the Inner Harbor: http://askusnow.info/staff/node/323
18 - Forwarded announcement of the SLRC UNconference
21 - The 300k celebration toolkit for marketing AskUsNow! and celebrating our 300,000 questions was sent out to liaisons, statewide marketing folks, and others.
21 - announcement of the QuestionPoint survey
23 - announcement of ALA programs of interest
23 - NEW QUALITY TIP: email addresses & follow-up
23 - announcement about staffing on July 5th
23 - report and webinar announcement about the 4th in a series of studies about Technology Resources
July
1 - Margie (Calvert) sent some revisions for the AskUsNow! Service Guidelines (typos)
2 - See the QP blog for the discussion at the Users Group meeting at ALA
6 - Julie sent a reminder about policy pages and including information on how to renew your library card
6 - Official announcement of the removal of the old AskUsNow! Partners Page
6 - announcement and invitation to the AUN press event celebrating 300k questions
7 - a request to add the facebook event for our 300k press event to your library's facebook pages
14 - early bird registration announced for the Reference Renaissance conference in Denver
14 - reminder to take the QP survey, asking about what we want / like / dislike / would do.
16 - 2011 Liaison Meeting Dates
23 - Congratulations to the 9 AskUsNow! providers who graduated in the 2010 class of the Maryland Library Leadership Institute!
26 - request for all links / photos for any local 300k celebrations you held
28 - Congratuations to 300,000 questions! (press event wrap up)
30 - Inner Harbor usability testing- volunteers needed
Aug
2 - announcement of July monthly report
3 - two new staff training sessions announced
4 - announcement for QP virtual users group meeting (two meetings)
4 - reminder about usability testing - volunteers needed
6 - forwarded information about an ebook seminar being held online
13 - Reference Renassaince and SLRC Unconference notes now online
13 - reminder about usability testing - volunteers needed
16 - last call for Usability testing volunteers
16 - Betty let us know the AACPL catalog would be down for maintenance Aug 17 - 19th
17 - forwarded information about free Pubmed workshops
19 - Operations Assistant Position now open! Apply now!
19 - Note about American Libraries article on NYPL and their crisis guidelines, reminder that we've got them too (and first!)
30 - one spot left for tomorrow's New Staff training
30 - note about September 6th Labor Day holiday closings
Sept
7 - still time to apply for the Operations Assistant position!
8 - forwarded message, Open University in the UK joins the 24/7 Academic cooperative. this only affects MD academic libraries who monitor global.
8 - Liaison meeting: rsvp and agenda
9 - kendra sent a message about carpooling to the liaison meeting
This is the second time we've had a virtual component to our liaison meetings but the first time we had people join us en masse. And i must say it worked really well! Blended meetings are hard to manage and i thank everyone for giving it a shot and being patient with the technology! Julie will be following up with everyone to see how it went and how it can be done better next time. I think it's safe to say that having a virtual component is the new normal for AUN liaison meetings.
We have an intern!
Julie Strange introduced Dennis Nangle, AUN!'s new intern. Dennis is in his last semester at UM and has been working in various capacities in libraries since the age of 16. We hope that the Internship will become a permanent opportunity for library science students. Welcome Dennis!
We have a budget!
AUN's budget passed for FY2011 and we were able to secure funding for a part-time assistant and is currently accepting applications. There is no money for Marketing for this year but with salary savings from FY2010 we were able to purchase 100,000 magnets and 5,000 highlighters.
Montgomery College's New Liaison
Beverly L. is stepping down as the Liaison for MCCC and Abi S. will be taking her place. Welcome Abi! Beverly will be staying on as an AUN provider. Thanks Beverly! We'll miss you at the meetings!
Because of the budget situation for marketing, we will be relying on social media and WOM to carry our message. To that end, we're creating a strategy to be more purposeful in how we utilize twitter, facebook, and the like. Right now we're just doing it because we're doing it - not to any specific plan.
Julie would like to receive copies of any “social media” initiatives/plans/written goals any of our libraries happen to have in place. Also plan to help her put together a plan or mission statement or written strategy about AUN!'s involvement with social media.
Julie has been told about “Hoot Suite” which is a social media aggregator that allows you to place a single message that is posted on each of your social media formats. AUN will be using it to manage their social media.
Amy updated the group as to the progress of the team (see the group page here). The group's timeline is to complete testing in September and make recommendations for the website in October. We're using Wimba for the one hour tests so we can do it virtually and still see where the participant is clicking around.
Please reread the great explanation of the use of the Dummy Cards. It is designed to help those of us that have had difficulty in the past convincing our administration or our vendors that we are actually still serving our own customers via this service. The goal of providing a dummy card number, is to help provider librarians, wherever they may be, help your customers best access your resources—that is, databases as well as library accounts.
Julie is strongly encouraging each and every institution to make a dummy library card available to the AUN! Providers on our Policies Pages. If you haven't been able to, what are the reasons?
Montgomery College only provides onsite access for non-student and are concerned about licensing considerations, as are others.
John K. brought up the issue of getting providers to actually use the number provided on our Policy Pages. Susan McGlamery has been working on better communicating the importance of referring to Policy Pages.
Cathay had developed a number of online tutorial videos (using Qarbon Viewlet Builder software*), including one on using Policy Pages, that will be available at Inner Harbor very soon. EBSCO is also developing “geo-location” for use of their databases, as is Gale. So, in the future, this may be be a non-issue for the majority of the databases to which our libraries subscribe.
* Julie says there are lots of cheaper alternatives to this software, if you are exploring video tutorials for your library
Another concern is about people coming into the [college's] weblink that are not actually students. Julie mentioned that, statistically, this is very rare. But when it does happen, it is important to remember that the provider is not sharing the dummy card number with the customer and that part of the interaction should be to guide the customer to resource available to him via his local public library, etc.
An aside...
Jeri brought up the lack of cobrowse again—why we no longer have it, why isn't it available—when services that have cobrowse are out there and available. Julie will check those other services out again and speak with QP.
How important is cobrowse?
Julie passed around booklets that Ask Colorado and Know It Now (OH) put together by their “quality assurance” teams. These monthly reports highlight great customer service by providers (see also Oregon, AskWa of Washington State). Julie would like us to try something similar by forming a team. Group members would randomly pick a day to review for great transcripts and there would also be the opportunity for providers to self-nominate. Group Members would then report to AUN! members as determined.
Julie would like to ask for volunteers and develop a basic framework for how it would work, a rubric for nomination, and what kind of reporting would happen. One suggestion would be for liaisons to provide nominees from among their weekly-reviewed transcripts, which the Team would review. Julie would like providers to be involved on this Team. Julie will send a notice on the listserv that we can forward to our folks. Seven is about the number that sounds good for this team but Julie still is not sure about time commitment. We are hoping to have this up and running in time to plan an event/announcement for the Stellar Librarians at MLA in the Spring (May 4-6, 2010).
Discussion
Should reporting be monthly? quarterly? – Quarterly seems too long between and there may be issues with records being “washed” of provider info if we wait that long. So monthly seems more regular, if not more practical.
We like the idea of taking advantage of liaison-review of transcripts. Julie will develop a form on Inner Harbor OR she will also investigate the possibility of using the “referral to email Partner” or “referral to Partner Subscription” options within QP.
Attendees also discussed developing the “rubric”/guidelines and whether or not someone who volunteers for the committee may or may not be the best provider or the best judge of the best provider. So a very clearly defined list of criteria that must be met for a transcript to be considered. It should be short and sweet (maybe five criteria). There may be multiple providers to create one really great transcript.
Regarding reporting: It won't be necessary for the transcripts to be scrubbed while the committee is looking at them, but this will definitely have to be done before any sort of publication. Announcements will necessarily be in the month following the month being considered.
followup on http://askusnow.info/staff/Special_Library_Partner_Optimization:
Thank you, Worcester County, for promoting Maryland's Special Libraries via your webpage!
Thanks also to PGCMLS and AACPL who's been able to add some as well to their pages!
The Law Library has been providing online chat reference via AUN! on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 2pm to 4pm for about 4 months now.
Catherine is having problems determining how much to promote it and and how to balance her coverage. She knows she can add 2 more hours during the week. One idea is for the MSLL to purchase its own queue and add providers to cover more hours. MSLL isn't really ready to market to the general public yet, but they'd like us to try to use it at our desks with/for our customers.
Julie'd like all AUN! members to promote the service to our Information Desk staff. Julie is in the process of remodeling an AUN! Logo to highlight the Law service and Catherine would like to add that logo to the MD's Peoples Law website. Currently, however, the MSLL is in the process of totally redesigning that webpage, so adding the logo will have to wait. If we have any ideas about how to promote it and/or get our staff to really take advantage of the hours currently scheduled.
MSLL may also be monitoring on times other than those published. Catherine is encouraging her five librarians to monitor at their desks or when the ref-desk is really slow, so there is a good chance they may be on if we have a needy customer that we haven't been able to help ourselves.
Ann suggested Catherine place fliers at each of the County Law Libraries. Debbie also suggested marketing to large law firms, but Catherine explained that they are really trying to reach the general public and that going to Peoples Law or chat would not be the direction actual lawyers would go. Margie asked about marketing to the County's social services agencies, but Catherine suggested that idea might be more like a “Step 2” after marketing to the Public/County libraries.
Another aside...
NRSC (non-rude serial customers) became a tangential line of conversation. Julie will be looking at the isp addresses of a repeat customer that came up in conversation.
We now have the ability, on an institutional level, to create descriptive codes. Each of us can produce our own, but we could also use an AUN!-wide list. We want to at least have a “Law” tag. For example, Montgomery County has their own list that they use on their own queue.
Questions that arose included:
Comments/Ideas included:
We want to keep the list short and clear enough that no additional explanation/definition is needed. Not Ambiguous!!
We will hash this out in Inner Harbor—that is, attempt to come up with 5 basic statewide and then each institution can have their own additional. Julie will check to see how the lists are viewed by the providers in chat (local then statewide then national?). If it doesn't work the way we hope, Julie will let us know right away, so we don't spin our wheels.
Julie wants to create an official mentoring program. What that means is... since her training line in the budget has gone to zero and since Cathay's videos will be available soon, any new staff training will involve more and more pre-training homework and only a half-day in-person training. Post-training follow-up will be done more with mentors. How do we want to do this? Do we want to do it on a training-by-training basis or have an ongoing group? Should mentors be from the person's library or one closeby? Should we create a mini-team to work out the details on this, or should we just work out the details here? Do other services have something similar? Could we have a new-providers discussion board on Inner Harbor that is monitored by more experienced staff. Is it possible to survey each liaison to see if they really need someone from outside their system to guide/mentor their new people? Most of us are doing it when we get a new provider. Is it possible to survey each of the new providers to see if they need the extra help? Maybe this all came up because the Law Library was really starting from scratch and needed an outside person to help hold their hands.
ulie is trying to streamline this system, codify it a bit more.
John (PGCMLS) remembered that AUN used to have a "post training checklist" that the liaison had to sign off on that included specific situations to practice with. the formal Mentoring idea fell flat, since it's already sort of being done locally. Julie will find/create the post training checklist and call it a day.
Meeting adjorned 2:45pm
Thank you to Debbie (Howard County) for taking the notes.
Thank you also to Amy F. (St. Mary's) and Amy S. (FCPL) for being faciliators for the virtual participants!