SWON Libraries

Attendance

Beth Tumbleson (convener), Melanie Moon, Sheri Myers, Leoma Dunn, Jennifer Gregory, Glen Horton, Vicky Sweeney

Topic

Technology in Reference Services

Notes

IM Clients, e.g. MeeboMe

• Miami using MeeboMe for about a year (gets occasional use)
• Sheri: they have heard of some interest among their patrons
  

KnowItNow & KnowItNow Academic

Reference Universe - Federated Searching of the Print and Electronic Reference Collection

• Available at all Miami libraries
  

Electronic Reference Sources:

• Oxford Reference Online
• Gale Virtual Reference Library: 56 titles via OhioLINK, to add 40 titles/year
• OhioLINK Electronic Book Collection
  

Print Ready Reference Collection—Is it time to dissolve this collection?

• No one in the group using this at their libraries
• Google does not find a lot of this stuff
  

Online Tutorials

• Point of use instruction
• To answer reference questions
• Software for screencasts and podcasts?
• Captivate, Camtasia, Wink, ITunes, etc.
  
• Good for serving remote students
• Sheri: building a database of database tutorials
• Jennifer: seeing lots of students using virtual reference for last minute help
• Melanie: she sees all incoming students and introduces them to resources. Has no way of listing/linking electronic resources on their site
  

Tools: Which do you use @your library?

• 2 Way Radio, Blackberry, Headset, etc.
• Glen: some libraries using Vocera for staff-to-staff communications
  

Reference Manual—Wiki (WordPress, WetPaint, PBWiki, etc.)

• Beth: Miami using PBwiki for their staff wiki
• Vicky: Campbell County Public using MediaWiki for their staff wiki
  

Library Page

• “Never going to be a primary destination page” 2% of users start here
• Sheri: learned at Computers in Libraries Conference that students do try to go to library pages, but pages are done poorly
  

Ohio Web Library

• Jennifer: college students coming in to use the services they are familiar with from H.S. Wants to see more interaction between public and academic libraries in KY
  

RSS Feeds for reference work

• Sheri: NKU is providing catalog feeds for new items
  

Search Engines/Databases more like Google

• EBSCOhost new interface July 1, 2008
• USASearch.gov
  

Beth: The 100 Best Products of 2008 (PC World)

Other discussion

• Jennifer: Boone County Public is targeting 5 & 6 graders in their advertising
• Jennifer: Boone County Public is running virtual reference ads on local cable and YouTube - very successful
• Human-powered search: Cha-Cha, Mahalo
  

Next meeting

• September? Glen and Beth will find a date
• Topic suggestions: digitization, marketing