Why is the sky blue Implementing a collaborative virtual reference desk project

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Why is the sky blue?Implementing a collaborative
virtual reference desk project

• Kitty Mackey
• Roxanne Dimyan
• Cannell Library, Clark College

Linda Frederiksen Nicole Campbell WSU Vancouver
Library
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Outline

• Introduction Grant Information
• Technical Information
• Assignments
• Lessons Learned
• Conclusions / Q A

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LSTA Demonstration Grant

• Background
• 7 grants - 30,000
• 23 participating libraries
• 6 other projects

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Virtual Reference in Washington
Pend Oreille County Library
Skagit Valley College
Stevens County Library
Jefferson County Library
Sno-Isle Regional Library
University of Washington
Spokane Falls CC
Seattle Public Library
Spokane CC
City University
King County Law Library
Washington State Library
Whitman County Library
Grays Harbor College
Ellensburg Public Library
Timberland Regional Library
Washington State University
WSU-Vancouver
Clark College
Information provided by the Statewide Virtual
Reference Project, Washington State Library
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WSU Vancouver Clark College Project

• Why we did it
• Geographic proximity
• 22 model
• Grant proposal
• Grant period
• Grant requirements

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Ask A Librarian

• Formalizing collaboration
• Interagency agreements
• Budgets and accounting
• 24/7 software

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Where we are now

• Status of Washington State Library and LSTA funds
  in the state
• Current number of transactions
• Where we hope to be by the end of the grant
• How will we evaluate virtual reference service

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Initial Setup

• Setup and servers
• Library Websites
• Branding
• Scripts

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Training

• Initial training by 24/7
• Test Qs
• Practice practice practice

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Policies

• Determining user population
• Students, staff faculty
• Community
• Hours Scheduling
• Authentication
• Communication
• Confidentiality

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Troubleshooting

• Technical
• Dropped patrons
• Clearing cache
• Staff
• Are you monitoring?
• Test and preview pages

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Assignments

• If you give an assignment, they will go online!

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Assignments WHY?

• Nothing was happening online
• Needed to practice
• Wanted a control group for feedback

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The Process

• Met with faculty, designed assignment
• Met with classes, described assignment
• Emailed details to Virtual Reference list
• Students turned in transcripts to instructor
• Met classes, students completed evaluations

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How We Picked Courses

• Instructor interest
• Assignment met course outcomes
• Different skill levels
• Web experience
• Library experience

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HDev116 College Success

• One specific question Please tell me where to
  find information on (fill in career of their
  choice).
• One specific answer Librarians escorted
  students to specific source (CIS and WOIS).
• Created scripts for repetitive instructions.

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CSA185 Intro to Using the Internet

• Seven questions, they choose one. (7th was your
  choice)
• Several answers, but specific
• sources -- periodicals
• databases.
• Student reactions led to
• evaluations.

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Evaluation Questions

• What type of connection? (gave us a clue)
• What kind of service did you expect to receive?
• How did your experience compare with your
  expectations?
• Additional comments

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What Type of Connection?

• Dial-up 22
• Cable/DSL 15
• On-campus 8

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Students Expectations

• Sorted into three types
• Instructional Someone who could help me find
  my way around
• QA A question answer service
• Drive-Thru Reliable, fast service!

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Evaluation Tallies

• Experience?
• Positive 30
• Negative 10
• Neutral 4

Expectations? Instruct 10 QA
13 Drive-thru 9 Neutral 12
Comments? Positive 17 Negative 9 Neutral
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Student Responses - Negative
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Student Responses - Negative
Connection ? AOL Expectation I wasnt
sure. Experience It sucked because it messed
up. (twice) Comments Too slow!
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Student Responses - Negative

• Connection Cable
• Expectation Reliable, fast information
• Experience Below my expectations.
• Comments Because there were several technical
  problems during my session, the librarian
  couldnt guide me to the web page she/he found.
  And the transcripts were incomplete. Only
  showed my question.

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Student Responses - Positive
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Student Responses - Positive

• Connection Cable
• Expectation Reliable, fast service
• Experience It was better than I thought. I
  mean, it had some problems, like glitches here
  and there, but I got my information.
• Comments Still need to work on the program,
  figure out the problems, but otherwise good
  program.

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Student Responses - Positive

• Connection DSL
• Expectation I had no expectations. I thought
  it would just be busy work, but it was more
  helpful.
• Experience Librarian was patient and more than
  helpful especially since I had never been in a
  chat room. I got email of sites visited, which
  was helpful.
• Comments (Couldnt get on 2nd time, called
  reference desk at Clark.)

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Student Responses - Positive

• Connection DSL
• Expectation basically good service, sending
  me directly where I wanted to go.
• Experience librarian not familiar with
  assignment, but triedfollowed up next day w/o
  being asked, sent me more info. I was very
  impressed with his service
• Comments More hours of operation

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Student Responses - Positive

• Connection Modem
• Expectation exactly the type of service I
  received. Ask a question and get an answer that
  is both helpful and interesting.
• Experience excellent service and the person
  that I spoke to was very informative, and to boot
  was very courteous. Dont find that too much
  with automated information systems.
• Comments should be made a permanent
  feature.

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Student Responses - Positive

• Connection HP thru AOL
• Expectation Pretty general service.
• Experience It was great. They asked good
  questions and led me to very specific websites
  for information.
• Comments They responded quickly when they
  were busy, asked if I wanted to wait.

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Student Responses - Positive

• Connection DSL
• Expectation I was kind of unsure about what to
  expect. I figured it was some kind of search
  engine but was surprised it was an actual
  librarian.
• Experience BLEW IT OUT OF THE WATER! KABOOM!!!
  ?
• Comments THANKS ? ?

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Conclusions
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Assignments - Conclusions

• Keep assignments simple.
• Build scripts to match assignments.
• Do pre-and post evaluations.
• Students should get credit for assignments.

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Lessons Learned

• Statistics
• Marketing
• Staffing
• Service hours
• Policies and procedures
• The virtual reference librarian
• Online help guides
• User populations

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Lessons Learned
http//www.vancouver.wsu.edu/fac/campbell/onlinenw
2003/