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Questionpoint.org : Community Events

 

Conferences 

See also the Events Calendar

ALA Annual Conference ACRL Conference ALA Midwinter  Qwidget Webinar IFLA  ALA Annual Presentation

 

ALA Annual Conference

Chicago, Illinois

Best Practices in Cooperative Reference

 

Saturday, 11 July 2009

Chicago Hilton

Lake Erie Room

 

Budget woes? Natalie Tagge of Illinois' AskAway shares tips on sustaining a virtual reference service even as grant funding ends.   And Lynn Connaway (OCLC Office of Research) and Marie Radford (Rutgers

 

Sustainable Virtual Reference: AskAway IL's Best Practices for Future Quality of Service. Natalie Tagge

The last year has been full of changes for the AskAway IL project: The IMLS grant that funded the AskAway IL project ended, budget cuts made travel for training and outreach unfeasible and AskAway IL will no longer have a full time coordinator in the near future. So woe is the AskAway IL project, right? Wrong! Find out how AskAway IL through the dedication of the over 200 libraries that participate in the project, the Illinois State Library's continued support and the hard work of a Statewide Virtual Reference Advisory Board have met goals for sustainability and continued quality to serve Illinois users.

 

Natalie Tagge is Illinois Virtual Reference Coordinator at the Illinois State Library. She is in charge of the AskAway Illinois virtual reference cooperative. In other lives, she worked on a dairy farm, taught high school and waited tables, all of which she finds relevant to her current profession.

 

"Way Sweet" or "Just Wrong": Users Reveal Critical Factors for Virtual Reference Service Excellence.  Lynn Silipigni Connaway and Marie L. Radford.

What do virtual reference service (VRS) users think are the best and worst practices in live chat? The final phases of the Seeking Synchronicity grant project involved online surveys with 137 VRS users and in-depth phone interviews with 76 VRS users. Use of the Critical Incident Technique identified important factors in users' perceptions of success and failure. This presentation provides an overview of these findings with numerous candid examples from the users. We asked, they definitely answered. Be prepared to hear about the good, the bad, and the ugly in users' perceptions of live chat.

Lynn Silipigni Connaway, Ph.D., is a Senior Research Scientist at OCLC Research whose research areas include the study of information-seeking behaviors, query log analysis, and data mining to provide evidence for making informed decisions for the development of library services and systems.

Marie L. Radford, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor at Rutgers University and a leading researcher and consultant in evaluating virtual reference and in investigating interpersonal communication in library contexts.

 

To register, please go to the OCLC registration site. 

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ACRL Conference

Seattle, Washington

 

Collaborative Reference in a 24/7 World

Roundtable discussion

Saturday, 14 March 2009, 8:00 - 9:00 a.m. 

Sheraton Seattle Ballroom 6E, Table #RT9

 

Virtual reference librarians, come share your experiences with chat, email, widgets, and collaborative reference with your colleagues.  Share tips on promoting the service and meeting the needs of today's 24/7 students.

 

 

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ALA Midwinter

Denver, Colorado

 

Best Practices in Cooperative Reference

Innovations in VR: Multilingual, Multinational Networks and Reference Extract

To see a webcast of this session, click here.

Saturday January 24, 2009

1:30 – 3:30 PM

Colorado Convention Center

Room 502

 

The panel will present two innovative approaches to improving reference service for our users: building a better search engine using the knowledge of reference librarians, and building a multilingual, multinational reference service.  

 

David Lankes, Information Institute of Syracuse, will discuss Reference Extract, an exciting new project that envisions taking the work that librarians do as part of a reference transaction and using this information to bring more credible results to web searching.  The Reference Extract project is currently being planned to aggregate the power of librarians to improve how people find information on the web. The session is both an overview of building a "credibility engine," and an invitation to be a part of and guide the project. 

 

Paul Ulrich, Berlin Central and Regional Library, will discuss how he has formed partnerships with librarians throughout the world to provide reference services in 27 languages to his users.

Join us to learn more about these two exciting projects!

 

About the speakers:

R. David Lankes is director of the Information Institute of Syracuse, and an associate professor in Syracuse University's School of Information Studies. He is also a fellow at ALA's Office for Information Technology Policy. Lankes has always been interested in combining theory and practice to create active research projects that make a difference.

 

Paul S. Ulrich is an American who has worked in the Berlin Central and Regional Library (until 1995 in the America Memorial Library) for over 30 years. For the past 13 years he has been in the Information Services Department. He has published many professional articles and books, is on the editorial board of Online Information Review and regularly conducts workshops on using the internet for reference services for the Goethe Institute.

 

Please register at http://www.oclc.org/info/ala/ 

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 Qwidget Webinar

Wedneday, October 1, 2008

11:30 AM ET to 12:30 PM ET [3:30 GMT to 4:30 GMT]

 

Curious about Qwidget? Join us for an informative discussion with librarians who have taken the plunge and put the QuestionPoint Qwidget up on their library Web sites. Our speakers are from a large university, a community college and a public library. They will discuss aspects of deploying the Qwidget, including: where the Qwidget is placed on the Web site (library catalog, library guides, etc), promotion and response from users (including usage statistics).

Our speakers are:

This free webinar will be held on Wedneday, October 1, 2008, from 11:30 AM ET to 12:30 PM ET [3:30 GMT to 4:30 GMT]. After the presentations, there will be time for questions. Please register at the link below to attend this informative discussion! If you are unable to attend, the session will be recorded.

 

 https://www3.oclc.org/app/request/bin/request.asp?specialCode=QP081001

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IFLA

Global Virtual Reference Service with QuestionPoint

Tuesday, 12 August, 3:15 – 4:00 pm

Conference Centre Room 2102ab

Learn how QuestionPoint’s reference management service provides libraries with the tools they need to interact with their users in multiple ways, using both chat and email. With QuestionPoint, librarians can:

 

• Meet users at their point of need—provide reference service around the clock with trustworthy, real-time one-on-one reference assistance from professional librarians, right from you library Web page or other Web portal. Wherever your customers are, you can be there too.

   

• Chat, co-browse and cooperate using best-in-class reference tools.  No special software or browser plug-ins are required – the QuestionPoint chat tools are completely web-based. Multilingual reference transactions are supported.

   

• Refer to other librarians within your library, your consortium of libraries, or through the QuestionPoint Global Reference Network, ensuring that your users’ requests go to the most appropriate librarian.

   

• Add frequently asked questions and other resources to the QuestionPoint knowledge base, for easy and efficient retrieval of useful information.

   

• Manage all reference transactions with integrated reports for chat, email and other reference services. 

   

 

 

Please register here if you can attend: http://www.oclc.org/info/ifla

 

 

Virtual Reference Around the World: Roundtable Discussion 

Join virtual reference colleagues from around the world for an informal discussion of virtual reference trends, ideas, and opportunities. Attendees will continue the discussion from previous IFLA conferences about experiences in global virtual reference. All are welcome – come share information about your virtual reference service, and learn more about the services provided by your colleagues throughout the world.

 

 

 

Please register here if you can attend: http://www.oclc.org/info/ifla

 

 

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 ALA Annual Presentation

 Best Practices in Cooperative Virtual Reference:

Management Tips for a Successful Service

 

 

 June 28, 2008, 1:30 - 3:30 pm

Anaheim Convention Center, Room 207D

 

Our panelists manage large multi-type cooperative virtual reference services, providing 24/7 reference help to populations numbering in the millions. Learn the tips and techniques that these experienced statewide coordinators use to promote their service to both end users and stakeholders, and how to effectively manage cooperative services staffed by a variety of libraries. The speakers will discuss sustainability issues as well, including recruitment and retention of participating libraries. There will be time for discussion so bring your questions and comments.

 

 

Our speakers:

Mark Beatty is Training and Automation Librarian for Wisconsin Library Services (WiLS) and is the current elected President of LITA, the Library and Information Technology Association division of ALA. At WiLS he serves primarily as trainer and consortial wrangler for InterLibrary Loan, eBooks, and Virtual Reference services. He is the Administrator for AskAway the Wisconsin state wide virtual reference multi-type consortium.

 

Beth Cackowski is Project Coordinator for QandANJ.org, New Jersey's 24/7 Statewide Virtual Reference Service, Beth's current professional focus is on digital

services and the Millennial user. 

 

Julie Strange is Operations Supervisor, Maryland AskUsNow!, the statewide VR service in Maryland. AskUsNow! has been a participant in the 24/7 Reference Cooperative since January 2003 and is provided by 19 public library systems, 11 academic libraries and 3 special libraries including two law libraries and the Maryland State Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped.

 

 

To register, go to the OCLC registration site.

The discussion will be held Tuesday, 12 August, 1:00 – 2:30 PM

 

OCLC Suite, Room 2101, Conference Centre

 

 

 

 

Budget woes? Natalie Tagge of Illinois' AskAway shares tips on sustaining a virtual reference service even as grant funding ends.  And . . .

 

 

"Way Sweet" or "Just Wrong": Users Reveal Critical Factors for Virtual Reference Service Excellence. Lynn Silipigni Connaway and Marie L. Radford.

 

What do virtual reference service (VRS) users think are the best and worst practices in live chat? The final phases of the Seeking Synchronicity grant project involved online surveys with 137 VRS users and in-depth phone interviews with 76 VRS users. Use of the Critical Incident Technique identified important factors in users' perceptions of success and failure. This presentation provides an overview of these findings with numerous candid examples from the users. We asked, they definitely answered. Be prepared to hear about the good, the bad, and the ugly in users' perceptions of live chat.

 

Lynn Silipigni Connaway, Ph.D., is a Senior Research Scientist at OCLC Research whose research areas include the study of information-seeking behaviors, query log analysis, and data mining to provide evidence for making informed decisions for the development of library services and systems.

Marie L. Radford, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor at Rutgers University and a leading researcher and consultant in evaluating virtual reference and in investigating interpersonal communication in library contexts.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Way Sweet" or "Just Wrong": Users Reveal Critical Factors for Virtual Reference Service Excellence.  Lynn Silipigni Connaway and Marie L. Radford.

What do virtual reference service (VRS) users think are the best and worst practices in live chat? The final phases of the Seeking Synchronicity grant project involved online surveys with 137 VRS users and in-depth phone interviews with 76 VRS users. Use of the Critical Incident Technique identified important factors in users' perceptions of success and failure. This presentation provides an overview of these findings with numerous candid examples from the users. We asked, they definitely answered. Be prepared to hear about the good, the bad, and the ugly in users' perceptions of live chat.

Lynn Silipigni Connaway, Ph.D., is a Senior Research Scientist at OCLC Research whose research areas include the study of information-seeking behaviors, query log analysis, and data mining to provide evidence for making informed decisions for the development of library services and systems.

Marie L. Radford, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor at Rutgers University and a leading researcher and consultant in evaluating virtual reference and in investigating interpersonal communication in library contexts.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

University) relate what they learned from users regarding their view of our services.