Chat .... more than a reference tool

I've been seeing a lot more on chat reference, particularly jobs allowing some librarians to work from home providing chat reference. However, I wonder if any libraries are using it as a "team" tool - for internal communications among staff.

My first experience with chat was in the late 1990's. I was on a customer service team that was spread across two countries and four time zones. We were trying to find a way to come together as a team and fell into using Yahoo! Messenger. It turned out to be great. We all had our little areas of expertise and the chat allowed us to pop off quick questions to the teammate in the know with very little down time. Let's face it, the phone is great, but there is always a little personal chit chat thrown in which takes up time. Using chat became the norm for our group. It was also used by other departments in the company. About a year or so after we began using chat, Lotus Notes rolled out a company chat program called SameTime. I admit I was happy to see this. The real downside to using Yahoo! Messenger at work was that it mingled my work and my personal contacts. I didn't always want co-workers to see me online on the weekends as I considered that "my" time.

Since leaving that job and moving on to librarianship, I still chat. A lot. And yes, I sometimes have it up at work, but once again, it's not just my personal contacts. It's also my librarian contacts and one person on my team here. It still has the same uses in this job as it did the previous job. Quick answers to quick questions. If I'm at the reference desk, my teammate knows this through my status and comes to the reference desk if she needs to speak with me (an added feature since I'm the second floor and she's not). But, it's not standard in the library. The only other librarian who used chat has since moved to another position half way across the country... but I can still bounce questions off of her or even ask "do you remember why we did it this way?"

School just started here and I envision this great little way of knowing who is available in case one gets swamped at the reference desk... check out the chat tool and see who is online. A quick "help!" and they'd be there. However, I've also seen chat become a monitoring tool, which took absolutely all the collaboration and creativity out of it. I definitely don't see that as a use of it, but have decided that most people need to embrace chat, at least on a personal level, on their own. When the organization is spread across two countries and four times zones, then they can mandate it's use. And, with good reason.

I wonder though, if any libraries do have groups of people on chat. There are times I know it would beat sending multiple e-mails back and forth. I will add though, that if the quick question mentioned above becomes complicated, we do pick up the phone and call. After all, we know the other person is in their office. :)

technorati tags: chat chat collaboration

Figuring out what you need

I've blogged previously (albeit breifly) about WorldCat Collection Analysis (WCA). When it came out a year ago, I was excited. I needed something to help weed our collection and appreciated the fact that WCA would sort holdings by publication date. For many subject areas this isn't really an issue, but for those that out date fast, it is. It's also proved helpful when running reports for departments seeking accreditation for new or existing programs.

WCA recently added the ability to compare your holdings to title lists. I was very pleased to see that and excited to give it a go. Well, it does tell me what titles I have that are on the title lists. I believe it also tells me what I don't have. Problem is, I'm having a hard time interpreting the data as WCA is presenting it. This just makes me more anxious to get a peek at Bowker's Book Analysis System for Academic Libraries.

The more I use, the more I realize that WCA does not present results in a intuitive fashion. They do provide documentation, but the examples are of comparisions between peer institutions and not those that are comparisons of title lists. They say it works the same. Then I view the results and, sadly, I'm not sure what I'm looking at.

In talking with another Collection Development Librarian, we discussed it a bit and why some other institutions have chosen not to go with WorldCat Collection Analysis. They weren't sure that the peer comparison was all that beneficial to them, which is a big piece of WCA. I tend to agree. So, now I start to wonder if WCA is redundent. I've been very successful at pulling holdings for my reports from my ILS system. It's a bit more tedious, but I also have the added ability to determine what fields I include in the exported Excel report. It's all standard with WCA.

I'd really like to use the same system to determine what I weed and what recommended titles I'm lacking. The goal is to beef up areas that aren't quite up to par. I'm still not sure WCA won't do this; I'm going to keep plugging away and see what I can come up with.


technorati tags: collection development, book analysis, collection analysis

Electronic Resources and Libraries Conference

This past March Alexis and I were selected to present at ER&L on our federated searching research. It was an honor to be a part of this inagural conference. I was inspired by the quality of presentations and discourse by not only the presenters but the attendees. This was the first time I had been involved with presenting that involved an online element. Participants were given access to Moodle to post questions and review powerp0ints as well as the actual presentation. I thought I would share this permanent link just released by Georgia Tech's Institutional Repository. It allows you to relive that presentation. I hope that our infomration on federated searching sparks more interest and allows the library field to start driving this discussion instead of letting the vendors - mostly IT - drive it.
http://hdl.handle.net/1853/10170


Evolution of a Librarian

I want to thank Alexis, for bringing me kicking and screaming into the land of blogs. Most people that I know are perplexed by that statement because I am a Systems Librarian, IT professional, software trainer, and currently a department head for both IT and Instructional Media services at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. But it is true that I have been reluctant to enter the world of blogging, online journals, or the social communities of the 21st century. Perhaps a little more perspective from whence I come...

I started in the world of Bulletin Board Systems (BBSes) back in the mid-80's. I was on an interactive CHAT system back in 1986. I had my 1st internet account in 1988. I had my first Website (not web page but web SITE) in 1993 when Mosaic was just getting started. I presented the 1st hands-on workshop at Internet World and Computers in Libraries on "How to Create Your Own Homepage" back in 1994, 1995 respectively. Since then, I've been in and out of both the Library Systems world and the software training world. I love using and teaching the technology to further the lives of others.

Book Analysis Tools

I do collection development, so I'm always interested in tools that will help me evaluate what I have or don't have. One of the new tools soon to be available to academic libraries is Bowker's Book Analysis System. You must subscribe to the Books in Print database to use this tool. It will compare your library's holdings to ACRL's Resources for College Libraries (which is the update to Books for College Libraries and which will also be available in print and database formats). I've been able to look at the public library version and like what I've seen so far. Not only does it give you results by subject, but you can also view them by call number. You also have many options for limiters, such as award winners, or you can just run the analysis without limiters and take it by sujbect area. While it's Dewey for the public library product, Library of Congress call numbers will be available for the academic product.

I'm comparing this a bit to OCLC's WorldCat Collection Analysis system, which my library subscribes to, and which at times isn't as intuitive as the Bowker product appears to be (remember, I haven't seen the academic version yet). You must have holdings in WorldCat and subscribe to WorldCat. WorldCat Collection Analysis now runs comparisons against Choice Magazine's Outstanding Academic Titles, titles reviewed in Booklist , and Books for College Libraries (1988 ed.). Not sure if they'll upgrade this to the upcoming Resource for College Libraries or not.

WorldCat Collection Analysis also allows you to set up comparison groups, which could be particularly useful when doing accreditation reports for departments. I'm not sure about the Bowker product, but the unfortunate thing about WorldCat Collection Analysis is that a lot of the set up, i.e. which title list to compare to, which schools or institutions to compare to, is all done in the Administration module for WordCat as a whole. Advanced search does allow quite a bit of latitude for limiting the search, but you can't view the results by call number, just by subject heading.

Administration is also a bit awkward. It seems (as far as I can tell), that you can't get to the set-up from the module, which has proved frustrating to me. Maybe not to others. I've finally signed up for their e-mail, but I was a bit puzzled that as the point of contact for our purchase of the WorldCat Collection Analysis, I wasn't automatically put on some list to get product updates. I've found it frustrating to keep up with what they are doing; apparently enhancements are being done on a monthly basis, but unless you get the e-mail or make a habit of going into the admin module or visiting the website, you'll never know. I know it's a powerful tool - I've seen others show it. But, keeping up with it has been hard and it many ways, it's not intuitive. Still, I'm forging ahead because I think this will be an invaluable tool in analyzing my collection.


technorati tags: collection development book analysis