Well I've just found out the major problem with doing a reference inquiry on an answerboard. If the Internet is slow (and mine certainly was) it takes forever to move through different sites trying to find the answer. I was searching for information on radiation ecology. I found only one decent site on Google and Yahoo - the University of GeorgiaLII - and it took 15 minutes to finally log onto to lii, only to find it had no references! I searched on Metacrawler, Dogpile, Altavista and Lycos and still only found one decent site. I've put that answer in but know I could do better - if only my stupid computer wasn't so slow and it wasn't 10.30 at night!!!! It certainly is quicker with an encyclopedia in hand!
If I get some free time at work I might look at Yahoo!7Answers again and have another go.
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Monday, September 15, 2008
Slammin' the Boards
I have to admit that I had no idea there were all these sites dedicated to answering people's questions. No wonder we have so few reference inquiries in our libraries today! It is a bit of a concern that people are asking complete strangers to give them answers to often quite technical questions. I'm sure some of them were for uni or school assignments! They certainly didn't look like your average question. Consider this question: What potential is selected in chronoamperometry? I for one, was not going to volunteer to answer that one!
I'm glad to see that there is a Librarians Answer Board which should ensure that the answers are of a good quality plus it allows us to promote the skills we have as librarians, but I wonder who has the time to take this on? I thought our new ISC might give it a go, but I'll have to wait until they start to run it by them. I'd love to have a go at some of them, because I do so few reference inquiries today that my skills are getting rusty. Maybe I'll just have to 'find some time'!!!!!
Getting our customers to rate our services and collections would be very challenging. Firstly it's often hard to get people to become involved - look at the difficulty we have getting members of the public to comment on Readers in the Mist! If, however, we could get people to comment, it would be a good way to get feedback and find out if what we are doing is meeting people's needs. Getting ratings on items on our catalogue could actually become a readers advice tool. Getting ratings and comments on programs we run could also help us make sure we are providing what the customer wants. It certainly is food for thought!
I'm glad to see that there is a Librarians Answer Board which should ensure that the answers are of a good quality plus it allows us to promote the skills we have as librarians, but I wonder who has the time to take this on? I thought our new ISC might give it a go, but I'll have to wait until they start to run it by them. I'd love to have a go at some of them, because I do so few reference inquiries today that my skills are getting rusty. Maybe I'll just have to 'find some time'!!!!!
Getting our customers to rate our services and collections would be very challenging. Firstly it's often hard to get people to become involved - look at the difficulty we have getting members of the public to comment on Readers in the Mist! If, however, we could get people to comment, it would be a good way to get feedback and find out if what we are doing is meeting people's needs. Getting ratings on items on our catalogue could actually become a readers advice tool. Getting ratings and comments on programs we run could also help us make sure we are providing what the customer wants. It certainly is food for thought!
Monday, September 1, 2008
RSS feeds news feeds
2nd attempt to add an RSS news feed to my blog. I've chosen the Powerhouse Museum feed.
Library Thing
I love it!!!! I've started my own account and have added a few books, and had great fun doing it - I suppose that's my cataloguing alterego coming out. I've got quite a few older books (early 1800 publications) that have been left to me by various relatives. Library Thing allows me to create a list of them all and look for similar records and holdings in a variety of places. I can see great value in this. These books are now in the public arena, in a way they never would have been if they'd just sat on my shelves. Also, if the worst happens and they get destroyed, at least I have a record of what they were. This also could help with insurance claims - but I'd have to investigate further along those lines. I'm telling all my book reading relatives and friends about this site - I think they'll love it.
del.icio.us
Del.icio.us seems like a good tool to help me organise my bookmarks. I find it difficult to get my head around the idea that anybody else would be interested in my personal, as distinct from work, bookmarks. I can see that it would be an excellent tool for sharing good websites for reference inquiries. Could be an excellent tool for our staff to be able to share their knowledge and to make it easier for us when handling difficult questions.
However, I still wonder when I will get the time to write on my blog, check my RSS feeds, add to the entry for Lithgow on Wikipedia and, now, add more bookmarks on del.icio.us - let alone look at and comment on other peoples blogs! I shall add to my bookmarks over the next few days and see how useful del.icio.us is when I want to organise things.
However, I still wonder when I will get the time to write on my blog, check my RSS feeds, add to the entry for Lithgow on Wikipedia and, now, add more bookmarks on del.icio.us - let alone look at and comment on other peoples blogs! I shall add to my bookmarks over the next few days and see how useful del.icio.us is when I want to organise things.
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