News | Ask a Librarian News and Information

Librarians statewide to celebrate Ask a Librarian Day – Press Release

Mar 27, 2019 | AaL Day, News

Are you having trouble finding out, who invented the stethoscope? Do you want to know, who owns the apartment building on 49th street? Are you sitting at your computer frustrated trying to figure out where to start on your big research project? Live expert help is just a click away with Ask a Librarian. Ask a Librarian (www.askalibrarian.org) is FREE online service for all Floridians.

With Ask a Librarian, you are connected to a librarian who will answer your question right when you need assistance most. It’s easy to use, just go to www.askalibrarian.org and ask your question, a Florida librarian will assist you. Ask a Librarian is a collaborative program by libraries throughout Florida and will provide you with accurate answers utilizing your state and local resources.

“Ask a Librarian is a tremendous resource for students and anyone with a research need. It makes expert librarians available to any Florida resident. Ask a question and within minutes an actual person is helping you. It’s a great feeling to connect with a skilled supportive person and know you are not lost amid a million search results” according to Ask a Librarian Manager, Diana Silveira.

Librarians all over Florida will celebrate Ask a Librarian Day on Feb. 23 to bring awareness to the free online reference service that connects Floridians with librarians for help with homework or general questions.

Librarians at over 106 libraries around Florida will don “Askalibrarian.org” t-shirts and pins and will talk about the valuable service with library customers. They hope to inform people about Ask a Librarian’s benefits so that everyone can take full advantage of this user-friendly service.

Ask a Librarian is available live from 10 a.m. to midnight Sunday through Thursday and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 24/7 for email assistance. Visit www.askalibrarian.org for more information or to ask a librarian a question.

Pictures from last year’s event and more information about the service are available at: https://info.askalibrarian.org/aal_day.asp

Ask a Librarian is managed by the Tampa Bay Library Consortium (TBLC), and is funded as part of the Florida Electronic Library (www.flelibrary.org) by a Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) grant.

Participate in VR Research via Phone Interview!

Mar 27, 2019 | News

Participate in VR Research via Phone Interview

Dear Virtual Reference Librarian:

Greetings! We are looking for people interested in taking part in an important study of virtual reference services (VRS). We are willing to pay you for your time.

We hope you will be interested in sharing your opinions and insights about live chat VRS in our grant-funded research project titled, “Cyber Synergy: Seeking Sustainability through Collaboration between Virtual Reference and Social Q&A Sites.” We need librarians willing to participate in a phone interview. Please access the following link to sign up for the survey:

http://bit.ly/cybersynergy

The phone interview will take approximately 45 minutes and participants will receive $30 in compensation. All responses will be kept strictly confidential.

Prior to the interview, we will need a signed consent form. When you respond to this email by responding to the above URL and stating that you are willing to participate, we will send you a one page consent form for you to download, sign, and fax back to us. More instructions about this will follow to confirm your participation.

Cyber Synergy will evaluate sustainability of VRS and explore collaborative models for subject expertise among librarians and other experts systems, such as Social Q&A sites. This study is funded by a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, Rutgers University, and OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Inc.

We, the principal investigators of Cyber Synergy, thank you for your interest in the study.

Marie L. Radford, Ph.D., Associate Professor

Rutgers University

Lynn Silipigni Connaway, Ph.D., Senior Research Scientist

OCLC, Inc.

Chirag Shah, Ph.D.

Rutgers University, Assistant Professor

More information can be obtained at the project website: http://www.oclc.org/research/activities/synergy/default.htm

Questions?

Contact Alyssa Darden at dardena@oclc.org

May 2015 Statistics

Mar 27, 2019 | News, Statistics

On May 1^st Ask a Librarian migrated from Oracle Live Chat to Springshare’s LibAnswers.

May 2015 Ask a Librarian Statistics
Source	Sessions
Chat	3067
SMS	847
Email	2046
Total	5960

Session Sources

LibChat Statistics

Browsers Used
Operating Systems Used
Daily Distribution
Hourly Distribution
Chat Sources

AMP: Ask a Librarian Accelerated Mobile Page

Mar 27, 2019 | News

When you search google for “Ask a Librarian” on a phone, the first result is Ask a Librarian’s AMP page. Google shows that this is a valid AMP page by placing the AMP logo and name before the Search Result Snippet.

AMP Specification and page caching by Google result in very fast page loads

AMP logo

Ask a Librarian created an AMP page for statewide chat in August 2016. Chats from this chat widget began the next month.

Conversion Rate of 70.9%

While only 31 patrons viewed this page, it resulted in 22 chats offered. This is an extremely high conversion rate of 70.9%

What kind of questions are answered?

Lake County librarian helping Orange County patron place a hold on a book at OCLS
Patron wanting an ebook
5^th grader needing help with a book
Patron having Kindle trouble
Patron directed to FLE for databases
St. Petersburg Library System librarian helping a Leon Country patron find a book at the Main Library