Let me explain by way of several examples. A couple librarians from St. Michael’s College talked about a scheduling software called Acuity. They use this software to schedule research consultations with a librarian. On their library website a student clicks on a link that says “schedule a research appointment.” They are then taken to a form where they can choose a time and librarian that fits into their schedule. By filling out this form the student commits to a block of time with a reference librarian.

The opposite of this is a student who comes to the desk in between class or last minute and say they need some sources to finish their project. By not committing to taking time to research the result is haphazard and is perhaps not as successful. On the other hand, the St. Mike’s librarians said that they found the scheduled appointments to be some of the best sessions for both themselves and students. Students who commit to a block of time are able to explore their topic in depth as well as areas that they can pursue further.

The same is true for commitment in the classroom. In our information literacy sessions with first-semester first-years at Champlain College, we have them respond to poll questions using Poll Everywhere. Instead of asking them a question and wanting one or two of them to respond vocally to us, we have every one of them respond using their mobile phones. This makes them think about the choice and pick an option. After that, we ask them why they chose what they did. Because every one of them has picked something it is easier for them to explain a choice rather than make a choice in front of other people. This commitment makes them more willing to be engaged in the discussion.

It’s not always possible, but I’ve found that if you can find a way to make students commit, either at the desk or in the classroom, the results are often much better. Have you seen other examples of this?

Enter the Meebo Bar. It’s a piece of javascript code that’s sits as a layer on top of a website.  This allows it to be on multiple pages so your widget is not just on your “ask a librarian” page or your homepage; it’s everywhere without taking up a bunch or room. In addition, it’s fully customizable so you can include your library’s Facebook page, posts from your Twitter stream, Flickr photos, YouTube videos, and more. Users can get help from a librarian and also connect with them on social media all from a single bar on any of the library’s pages.

For possible downsides, because it is all hosted on Meebo’s server it could be changed at anytime. They might decide one day to include ads on all their bars. Though I think their current model of opting into ads for a small cut of the revenue is working for them. But other than that it seems like it could be the next generation of service for libraries providing virtual reference to their members. I made a quick screencast demoing an example of what a library Meebo Bar could look like. If you want to play with one yourself, you can visit their website or see it in action over at Slate.

Is anyone currently using this? Would this be something that could be useful at your library?

First, it helps that we get to see students almost every semester through our revolutionary information literacy program spearheaded by Sarah Cohen. Students get used to seeing a librarian and realize that we can help them. Instruction is very closely tied to reference. Re-evaluate what and how much you are doing in the classroom. Don’t just tell students there are databases available to them. Tell them WHY Google is not always the best place to get information. Make the case for libraries.

Second, professors give assignments that require library resources or that students must talk to a librarian. I think this one would be the most beneficial for anyone in increasing their reference usage. Forcing students to use the library is a great way to help them try it out and see how beneficial using the library can be. I constantly see students amazed at how useful the library is after they get over the idea that “it’s all on Google.” One student even found that using the library was quicker than searching online because they didn’t have to wade through all the “useless websites.” So, talk to your professors. Ask them to build the library into their assignments. They’ll be rewarded with better student work and you’ll be rewarded with a busy reference desk. I know we are.

Finally, we record reference statistics differently from other libriaries I have worked at. Instead of doing the tally method we are using Zoho Creator to easily create a form to record every reference encounter. This form collects all the data and you can export it easily into an Excel spreadsheet. This makes data collection simple, but it also allows you to see what stories your numbers are telling.

I made up a graph With the help of my good bud Chris Campion I made up a a graph in Excel using our data and we can see that a good percentage of our questions are coming through chat. You can also look at other things like “when are the bulk of your questions coming in?” Are you getting a lot of questions later at night? Perhaps you might want to discuss changing your reference hours to support this trend in the data.

These are just a few ideas, but they seem to be working for us. What’s working at your library, or what isn’t working?

I recently had an excellent summer scheming meeting with my amazing colleague Sarah Cohen. I like when we put our heads together. It gets me energized and excited about new ideas and initiatives that we could try.

Sarah had just gotten back from a trip to the UK and while there she visited Champlain College’s study abroad campus in Dublin. She related that immediately when she got there she had reference questions from the students there. Apparently students are doing significant research while they’re abroad, and are not quite sure where to get appropriate resources.

Even before she told me her idea I was on the same page as her: we should offer in depth reference to these students using a service like Skype or something similar. They do have our Digsby/IM chat available to them (which they have made use of), but with in depth research something more is needed.

I think we are going to look into it this summer and then maybe run a pilot of the service in the fall. The only missing piece that may be necessary is screen broadcasting software. I really like Procaster, which allows you to live stream what is going on on your screen.

But I really would like something that would allow me to use Skype and then simply switch from my camera to viewing what is on my screen. Is anyone using anything like this? Are there any free or cheap options available? I’ll do some more research, but it should be fun trying something like this.

Until now we just lived with it, but when I was writing my previous post on Pidgin I came across an article on LifeHacker.  It was about Pidgin, but in the comments a number of people discussed how they used a different program called Digsby to monitor their IM as well as social network accounts.  I downloaded it, tested it out for a couple of days and found it would likely work well for the library.

At the library we’ll probably only be using Digsby for IM to begin with, but I am pretty confident it will solve our problems.  When you’re offline, their IM widgets do not allow people to leave you offline messages.  Also, because the Digsby widgets and client is all one program (unlike our previous Meebo widgets and Pidgin chat client) it may be more stable.

We just implemented it on the library homepage so we’ll try it for a while.  Classes start Monday so we’ll see soon how well it works.

Now, if Meebo could add just a little more customization ability to its widgets, our IM reference would be right where I want it.  It is a little annoying that the widget says to leave an offline message.  When users do, they do not leave a way to contact them so there is no way to get back to them and answer their question.  Someday…

It was like Darth Vader talking to the Emperor on Star Wars.  I still think Will I Am should be wearing a dark cape.  I can’t wait for this to catch on.  Forget these ancient technologies like SMS reference and IM reference.  The wave of the future is here, and it is hologram reference!  I better get started implementing it here.

The system is actually already being used.  We have probably gotten around five or six genuine questions through IM since the start of the semester last week.  A couple were missed, but by implementing a louder ringing sound for a notification I believe that most of the missed IMs will be solved.  I received my first question on Monday and it was pretty exciting.  It was an actual reference question about where were good places to find literary criticism.  I was able to help the patron and it probably took only about 2-3 minutes.  I am glad to see that this system will be successful and even more glad that it will be useful to patrons.

We may have to re-evaluate how we staff the service because one of the librarians was getting a bit overwhelmed while having to help two patrons at once (cyber-patron and meat-patron).  My plan is to have a meeting in a couple of weeks to ask how the librarians are adjusting to the service and to ask for any suggestions or concerns.  After that we can go fully live and publicize the snot out of it.  But I believe that regular reference meetings are going to be necessary to evaluate the IM service and what could be done to improve it.