Listening Tour Notes

University of Maryland, Eastern Shore Library

Princess Anne: Wednesday 29 September 2010
In attendance: Theresa (liaison), Anne, Ann, Joseph,

Topics Discussed:

• askusnow.info/staff
• hourly usage for UMES - how many students are using the service overnight?
• medical librarian participation
• red/yellow/green status icons
• what does the (!) and (+) next to the customer's name mean in chat?
• Flash chat settings: now you're notified to new customers
  • broswer-based alerts seem to stick around a long time and are annoying
• databases and off-campus access
• policy pages + dummy library cards
• qr codes for promoting AskUsNow!

Worcester County Public Library

Ocean Pines: Tuesday 28 September 2010
In attendance: Karen (liaison), Alice, Cher

Topics Discussed:

• askusnow.info/staff
• highlighting AskUsNow! for Maryland Library snapshot day
• UK customers not being picked up by UK librarians?
  • how long does it take to refresh the librarian list to see if they have a customer?
• lag in typeback feature?
• culture of chat for customers - what do they expect? chat ettiquite
• IE8 compatibility with FlashChat
• when other librarians are following-up with customers - what's the best practices? moving question, not customer
• need time to go through IH site and use things that aren't often used.

Frederick County Public Library

C. Burr Artz Library, Frederick: Friday 24 September 2010
In attendance: Amy (liaison), Derek, Marie

Topics Discussed:

• askusnow.info/staff
• 9-10am global on Tuesdays has a lot of NYPL customers and no NYPL librarians monitoring
• UK customers use a lot of slang that's hard to determine
• issue: experiencing a lag in chat since the QP install on Sunday and Firefox update to 3.6 on monday.
• youtube videos are great for science and math questions. there are a lot of how-tos in explaining concepts
• issue: customers stop writing back.. still "green"
  • may be that they're focused on what you sent or are doing other things. Note to make the customer chime default to "yes"
  • qp suggestion: can you have the ability to set an "away" message?
• senduit.com for sending files when customer doesn't have or doesn't want to share an email address.
• sailor databases should authenticate in MD or let customer use their barcode.

Anne Arundel County Public Library

West County Branch: Wednesday 22 September 2010
In attendance, am session: Stephanie, Lisa, Carol, Brian
In attendance, pm session: Perri, Tammy, Rachel, Ivan, Linda, Cameron and Betty (liaison)

Topics Discussed:

• askusnow.info/staff
• scripts
• QP suggestions
  • formatting in chat and email areas. bold, italics, etc
  • keyboard shortcuts for chat - scripts, res codes, switching from Patron Chat to IM tabs, etc
  • spell check in email and chat
  • show the policy page jumpers as a tab in the info block area in chat - reminds people they're there, and makes them easier to use.
  • IM alert message is disruptive. instead, have the IM tab blink - makes it more obvious where to go and isn't as disruptive as giant red exclaimation points
• issues:
  • seems to be a randomness to when people are alerted via email to new activity on a follow-up or email
  • questions not showing up in the preview? (older issue)
  • what you say to the "email partner" person shows up in the email to the customer?
• request for IH: make crisis call guidelines more promenant
  • Julie's note: plan is to put them in hover menus: For Providers > Guidelines > Crisis
• only have time to read/look for the "immediate and practical" information
• anything you can do when the wrong resolution code is set?
• when is lost call used?
• NEW: when doing "email partner" there is now a choice to "send as answer" or "save as note"
  • note for Julie to do a tutorial on this... hadn't noticed before
• note of certain librarians in other counties not picking up questions. Julie will follow-up.
• typeback messages working correctly?
• red/green/yellow status messages
• marking a session as answered/followup when customer has disconnected or been disconnected
• how do you welcome someone from another service?
  • Julie's note: don't welcome them to AskUsNow!, it will confuse them. Simply say something like "Hi! My name is Julie and i'm a librarian in Maryland. My library helps out when your librarians are unavialable. I can help with that question."
• cobrowsing and hacks
• texting
• global staffing - price breaks

Calvert County Public Library

Prince Frederick: Friday 17 September 2010
In attendance: Margie (liaison), Sarah, Joe, Allyson, Pam, Linda, and Cathey

Topics Discussed:

• askusnow.info/staff
• adding scripts
• doing follow-up
• How do you find sessions you've already done in chat?
• QP suggestion: nixing the "patron library" list of scripts in the scripts tab in chat
• Staff needs time off the desk to do stuff. There's only enough time to chat. Need to carve time to add scripts, refresh, read announcements, etc.
  • idea: mandatory refresh time... an hour of training modules per quarter (ceus?) and 30 mins of practice chatting.

Charles County Public Library

Potomac Branch: Friday 17 September 2010
In attendance: DauVeen, Joan, Sally, Anita, Debbie, Leigh, Lena, Alison (liaison) and Emily (director)

Topics Discussed:

• askusnow.info/staff
• cobrowse
• top two quality issues
• crisis calls- what to do, where to find information
• librarians picking up questions too fast
• transfering a customer
• IMing a librarian
• how many probing questions is too many?
• policy pages & dummy library cards
• who sees surveys?
• answering in follow-up mode
• problems with statewide card - no database access

The Community College of Baltimore County

Essex and Catonsville campuses: Tuesday 7 September 2010
In attendance, Essex: Karen, Jill, Debra, Sharon, Erika, Gabe
In attendance, Catonsville: Cynthia, Cassidy, Anne, Elizabeth, Gretchen

Topics Discussed:

• askusnow.info/staff
• cobrowsing hacks
• changing the customer's email for follow-up
• how to do follow-up (and excellent email responses)
• Tackling Tough Questions
• suggestion for QP: adding a confirmation for follow-up emails sent (ie, being able to CC an email)
• privacy concerns with AskUsNow!
• class bombs - what are they, what are we doing about them
• homework questions
• QuestionPoint reports
• Policy Pages (and dummy library cards)
  • academic library logins to see the list of databases... can we add the list to the policy pages if no dummy lib card?
• resetting the customer audible alert to new messages to default to "on" rather than current "off" default
• a reminder about sending URLS - always verify with the customer they are ready for another source before sending it
• non-verbal communication within chat environments

Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped

Largo: Tuesday 20 July 2010
In attendance: Lori, Wilhelmina, Tyson

Topics Discussed:

• askusnow.info/staff
• cobrowsing hacks
• adding scripts
• advanced searching techniques
• drupal and cms's
• maryland and cooperative queues
• general AskUsNow! higherarchy and place within the larger cooperative
• dummy library card #s and policy pages

Prince Georges Community College

Largo: Thursday 8 July 2010
In attendance: Janet, Priscilla, Jean and Norma

Topics Discussed:

• askusnow.info/staff
• answering follow-up questions and "changing patron email"
• software wish: retracting sent messages
• security of shortened URLs
• cobrowsing
• transferring and IMing

Prince Georges County Memorial Library System

Hyattsville: Thursday 8 July 2010
In attendance: John, Beth, Colleen, Norman, Chris, Susan, Catherine, Deborah and Ke'Yona

Topics Discussed:

• askusnow.info/staff
• Access to other customer's records- what do you do?
• what's the legality of database use with customer's who aren't yours?
• cobrowsing- is it dead? (yes, but there are some hacks)
• policy pages and dummy library card numbers
• what do we do about homework questions?
• page push interface
• www vrs http:// protocol for sending pages to show up in interface
• UK customer wait time
• transferring and IMing

St. Mary's County

Lexington Park: Tuesday 22 June 2010
In attendance: Amy, Jeanette, Terri, Lynn, Diann, Sara and Aryana with an appearance by director Kathleen Reif!

Topics Discussed:

• St. Mary's is starting texting through SMRLA
• there seems to be an issue with the speed of messages sent actually going through to customers. there's also sometimes a long wait time with the "Updating please wait" message.
• suggestion: load policy pages in a side bar or window to make them more obvious for librarians handeling other's customers. (Julie's note: great suggestion! have let the QP folks know about it and they liked the idea!)
• Discussion about Resolution Codes. Sometimes it seems wrong to mark a question "answered" when it wasn't. Think of "Answered" as "no follow-up needed."
• suggestion: you can transfer a customer to another librarian or another queue (Spanish or After Hours, if they're on) but it would be great to be able to transfer a customer back to the queue they came in from

Carroll County Public Library and Community College

New Windsor: Monday 24 May 2010
In attendance: Lori, Liz (Carroll CC, liaison), Christy, Laura, Sandy, Gregor (liaison)

Topics Discussed:

• Known issues with Windows 7 or IE8?
• sessions maked for followup with no email address
• Can there be a "follow-up offline" resolution code?
  • If you're going to follow-up outside the system (ie, email articles from within a database), leave a librarian note noting what you did.
• Tech issue: Librarians show up as monitoring for four hours and sometimes aren't out of the librarian list even when they're logged out?
• texting business in Carroll county is low. might need more time to penetrate the community
• FOR QP: The Chat monitor doesn't go back to the large librarian list when you're no longer in a chat. (this was noted as a big issue).
• People think they are getting a local librarian bc of the way AUN is branded on the library website (ask US) and sometimes people get frustrated.
  • make sure policy pages are robust so it doesn't matter if the librarian is their local one
  • what do you do about account issues?
    • Julie note: One Statewide Maryland catalog.. statewide back-end access?
• What's a good time to wait before sending another resource? Ask the customer when they're ready.
  • add a script for "let me know when you're ready to see another resource"
• The customer has a last minute chance to add their email to get a transcript- after the session is done. that email isn't recorded but is used one-time only to send that transcript.
• in regards to 300k question celebration... display space might be limited in the libraries... include local data sheets

Baltimore County Public Library

Catonsville: Thursday 13 May 2010
In attendance: Carroll, Kim, Sandy, Kelly, Sarah, Bryce, Patrica, Michael, Cynthia, Angie, Tina, Sue (liaison), Jim

Topics Discussed:

• AskUsNow! Inner Harbor Staff Support site – askusnow.info/staff
• The age range of our customers – for marketing purposes and targeting schools
• What’s a “class bomb” and what we’re doing to lessen them
• Discussion about branches taking more global hours
• Discussion about all BCPL branches doing AskUsNow! – there’s a lot of trained staff out there!
• What’s going on in terms of the budget?
• What direction is AskUsNow! taking?
• The AskUsNow! intern
• The “Librarian is typing” feature & customizable descriptive codes are coming!
• Maryland State Law Library chat coming soon
• Special Library marketing initiative
• Spanish Queue – resources for librarians and customers?
• Learn more about transferring and IMing within chat – the other librarian doesn’t always see or respond!
• How do you add an email address?
• Is there a limit to how long I can spend with a customer? – Knowing the situation, sussing out the customer, and understanding the usage at the time
• What would you change about the software?
• Handle links better on the librarian side – so we knew they were links on the customer side
• Would be great for line breaks in follow-up responses and quality notes
• Single “ding” when a customer responds (versus repeating “ding”)
• The cursor disappears in the input box when you come back from searching

Washington & Allegany County Public Libraries

In attendance: Janice (Allegany County), Elizabeth (x2), Shannon, Joseph, Lydia, Cindy & Bill

Our first stop on this 2010 Listening Tour was met with enthusiasm and lots of conversation. Thank you!

Topics Discussed:

• AskUsNow! and texting: The Text A Librarian opportunity
• The Inner Harbor staff support website
• Classes using the service
• Policy Pages
• The future of AskUsNow! (budget) We're not going anywhere!
• Customer surveys: wording, satisfaction ratings
• AskUsNow! Activity (statistics)
• AskUsNow!'s history + the 24/7 reference cooperative history
• Resource access (Credo Reference, QP's wiki, Inner Harbor) and theory (wikipedia disclaimer?)
• Customer connection (green, red, yellow)
• awesomehighlighter.com- a co-browse hack of sorts
• What do i do with a foreign language question?
• Customer alert settings in chat