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.
Thursday, August 28, 2008
You tube
I've watched the You tube videos and surprised myself - I enjoyed some of them! Olive's return to Broken Hill was heartwarming and, at times, funny. Great way to present enjoyable local and oral history. She's a feisty old dame! I hated the timelapse construction video for the State Library of Qld. It made me feel sick watching it, and I had to keep looking elsewhere. Obviously it would be good to document the construction of a new library (thinking here of the new Katoomba Library!) but not using timelapse for that amount of time. Maybe short tours of the site at different intervals of the construction?
Book reviews - The Dr Dyl Show... what can I say!!!!!!! I think it would work very well for children and teen book reviews, and even for book groups with specific themes (I can see a Star Wars/Trek group doing video reviews - but maybe that's my biased perception!) Something for our Childrens/YA team to think about? Maybe they could work for adult book reviews - I would like to see a professional job for this, which is a bit outside our scope. But, yet again, that could be my own bias.
I can see great potential in tours of the library - especially of specialised collections. A tour showcasing our local history collection would be great. If we put it on You Tube it will reach people who may not normally come in and ask to look at this collection. Also staff updates and training delivered by You Tube would work well in our multi-location library service. Great potential to reach casual staff as well. We just need to find staff willing to stand in front of the camera!
Artexpress - I can see that these videos (there were lots more on both the shows and the process went through to create the art works) would be used a lot by art teachers and students. Great resource for parents trying to help their kids with HSC art. We could use video to promote exhibitions we hold. I think of the photographic competition held a few years ago. We could have taken video of putting the displays together and then the function when the winners were announced.
First thing we need to do is purchase a library video camera that is 'idiot proof' so we can practice making some videos. 2nd thing we need to do is find time to do all this stuff!!!!
Looking at Google Video. Much longer videos are possible. The ones for Mosman Library are talks of around 45 minutes. However the quality of the picture is poor and I hated watching them. I listened rather than lookedg at them. I really enjoyed the Peter Fitzsimons talk about Kokoda. The story about Nancy Wake is especially funny.
Book reviews - The Dr Dyl Show... what can I say!!!!!!! I think it would work very well for children and teen book reviews, and even for book groups with specific themes (I can see a Star Wars/Trek group doing video reviews - but maybe that's my biased perception!) Something for our Childrens/YA team to think about? Maybe they could work for adult book reviews - I would like to see a professional job for this, which is a bit outside our scope. But, yet again, that could be my own bias.
I can see great potential in tours of the library - especially of specialised collections. A tour showcasing our local history collection would be great. If we put it on You Tube it will reach people who may not normally come in and ask to look at this collection. Also staff updates and training delivered by You Tube would work well in our multi-location library service. Great potential to reach casual staff as well. We just need to find staff willing to stand in front of the camera!
Artexpress - I can see that these videos (there were lots more on both the shows and the process went through to create the art works) would be used a lot by art teachers and students. Great resource for parents trying to help their kids with HSC art. We could use video to promote exhibitions we hold. I think of the photographic competition held a few years ago. We could have taken video of putting the displays together and then the function when the winners were announced.
First thing we need to do is purchase a library video camera that is 'idiot proof' so we can practice making some videos. 2nd thing we need to do is find time to do all this stuff!!!!
Looking at Google Video. Much longer videos are possible. The ones for Mosman Library are talks of around 45 minutes. However the quality of the picture is poor and I hated watching them. I listened rather than lookedg at them. I really enjoyed the Peter Fitzsimons talk about Kokoda. The story about Nancy Wake is especially funny.
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