Link to this presentation:
Open Source vs. Commercial Integrated Library Systems
Post comments regarding this afternoon breakout session presented by Sharon Yang, Meghan Weeks, and Melissa A. Hofmann (Rider University).
Library Research Awards: Celebrating Excellence in Student Research
January 7, 2009 — Denise O'SheaLink to this presentation:
Post comments regarding this afternoon breakout session presented by Amy Clark (Brookdale), Lisa Coats and Eleonora Dubicki (Monmouth University).
General Comments on the 2009 Meeting
January 7, 2009 — Denise O'SheaPost general comments regarding this meeting.
Moving Beyond the Reference Desk
January 7, 2009 — Denise O'SheaLink to related materials:
Moving Beyond the Reference Desk: An Annotated Glossary
Post comments regarding this afternoon breakout session presented by Patricia H. Dawson (Rider University) and Katherine McGivern (Bergen Community College).
For a change of pace, I, a Systems Librarian, decided to sit in on a reference session. This session is a discussion of how reference can go virtual (aha, the technical angle).
The session started with a discussion by 2 reference librarians about the range of services provided in their libraries and as a field librarian.
Katherine shares with us her experiences at BCC:
- Can’t reach every student, how do we reach more students on our 3 campuses (including 2 campuses without libraries — Hackensack & Lyndhurst). How can we reach students that come to the library but never talk to the Ref. librarians, or leave the computer except to use the restroom? Note: they have 120 computers in their library.
- Eliminated the traditional reference desk. Meet students at eye level. Use butterfly monitors and double keyboards.
- Tried all of these things — chat, library 1on1 appointment service, roaming librarians, embedded librarians
- Appointment service is very popular.
- Roaming helps enforce policies, gives librarians a presence, help students find books, makes librarians more approachable
- Embedded librarian worked with an online class as the subject liasion. This did not take a lot of time.
- Chat — visited WPUNJ to get a sense of how this works. Initial contact has been minimal. Questions covered a wide range of topics. A blast email was sent out re: this new service. They offer chat from noon to 5. Librarians cover chat when they are OFF the reference desk (i.e., in their office) in 2 hour shifts. They used meebo but made sure that it launches in it’s own page. Had only 100 questions throughout the semester. Some chat questions were reference questions, many were general questions about the college. Some students use chat while in the library. The low usage of this new service has raised some questions — she thinks that maybe the hours that they have set are wrong, chat probably needs to be offered more in the evening.
- In sum, they are reaching more students and getting more reference questions. Students are impressed that the librarians are chatting and are on Facebook — BCC students think that their librarians are cool!
Patricia shares her experiences at Rider as a field librarian. She will post her vocabulary here on this blog.
- Science faculty and students avoid the library. The library has decided to go to them (i.e., the Science building) instead.
- Emailed a schedule to faculty.
- Took a laptop with the relevant tools installed over to the building. Setup a place in the student study lounge.
- Initially, contacts were with the faculty only. Students were slow to use the service. Scheduling has to be balanced with BI classes, holidays, etc. (i.e., don’t schedule the field hours when a lot of BI classes are being run).
- Made “house calls” to the faculty.
- Professors hand-delivered students, and called students on their cell phones and told them to come on down.
- Opportunity to meet new faculty. Got good feedback from students.
I hope that some reference librarians will add their feedback on this fascinating session.
VALE and NJVid: Collaborating for Our Future
January 7, 2009 — Denise O'SheaLink to this presentation:
Post comments regarding this afternoon breakout session presented by Jane B. Hutchison (WPUNJ).
Assessing Information Literacy Outcomes, Part 2
January 7, 2009 — Denise O'SheaPost comments regarding this panel discussion facilitated by Jacqui DaCosta (TCNJ).
Koha, Evergreen, and Voyager: A Comparison of Their OPACs
January 7, 2009 — Denise O'SheaLink to this presentation:
Koha, Evergreen, and Voyager: A Comparison of Their OPACs
Post comments regarding this afternoon breakout session presented by Sharon Yang, Meghan Weeks, and Melissa A. Hofmann (Rider).
Utilizing OPAC Search Logs and Google Analytics to Assess OPAC Effectiveness and User Search Behavior
January 7, 2009 — Denise O'SheaLink to this presentation:
Post comments regarding this afternoon breakout session presented by Jia Mi and Cathy Weng (TCNJ).
Session started with a brief overview of OPAC statistics in Voyager, followed-up by explanation of Google Analytics (a free service that generates statistics)*. Jia explained the Dashboard.
With their project they gathered 2 months of data — 1 month before and 1 month after the website redesign. They used Google Analytics to track trends and patterns for comparison.
Cathy talked about what the OPAC stats provide vs. what Google Analytics stats provide. Ex., OPAC stats did not indicate if queries were successful or not.
Next, Cathy gave us a look at her OPAC search statistics and discussed the conclusions gleaned from them. She also talked about possible next steps now that she has this data — i.e., how might she change her indexes and/or search interface.
Jia Mi talked about Google Analytics — she looked at a month’s worth of data (Nov. 2007), including usage, # of visitors, total # of page views, browsers used, speed connection, OS, screen resolution, the geographical map of users, peak times of use, traffic sources, content that users are looking at, most popular databases, use of limits, use of ‘New Books’ tab, etc.
Jia wrapped up with a brief discussion re: the pros and cons of using Google Analytics.
*Obtain Javascript from your Google Account and put the code in every web page that you want to track. Note: there may be some performance issues with using this script?
Our Voices, Our Stories, Ourselves
January 7, 2009 — Denise O'SheaLink to this presentation:
Our Voices, Our Stories, Ourselves
Post comments regarding this afternoon breakout session presented by Angela Camack and Theodore Laabs (Sussex County Community College).
Building a Virtual Last Copy Collection
January 7, 2009 — Denise O'SheaLink to presentations from this panel discussion:
Mary Mallery, Introduction to the VALE Last Copy Collection
Pamela Theus, William Paterson U. Library VLCC Project
Suxiao Hu, Montclair State U. Library VLCC Project
Christopher Sterback, Rutgers U. Libraries VLCC Project
Post comments regarding this panel discussion moderated by Mary Mallery (Montclair State University).
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