Comments on: fire, brimestone, and questionpoint

By: caleb tr

caleb tr — Mon, 26 Jun 2006 23:06:15 +0000

sarah, 40-60% isn’t cited anywhere – can you name names? our recent findings are that disconnects are occuring more than twice as often as before, and no study i have done as of yet found disconnects to be higher than 21%. not that 21% is okay, just that your figures are outlandish and i would love to know your source.

By: Sarah Houghton (LiB)

Sarah Houghton (LiB) — Mon, 26 Jun 2006 17:36:45 +0000

Caleb’s experience is not unusual. A PhD researcher approached me after one of my conference sessions last fall, telling me that in his studies of VR, anywhere between 40-60% of users were disconnected or otherwise not able to connect with a librarian. Not cool. Not at all. THIS is why I choose to rail so hard against VR products. If the disconnect rate were this bad with our phones–we’d switch service providers. Sadly, in the VR game, they all stink….so your choice is to move to an independent web-based IM solution like companies do, or try IM, or SMS (cell phone text messsaging). Or all of the above.

By: lbr.library-blogs.net

lbr.library-blogs.net — Thu, 22 Jun 2006 23:50:24 +0000

Till human voices wake us

There will be time, there will be time To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;There will be time to murder and create,And time for all the works and days of hands That lift and drop a question on your plate;Time for you and time for me…

By: Martha

Martha — Thu, 22 Jun 2006 20:56:50 +0000

I can give you a little comfort, I guess. We are up on questionpoint and although it is getting some use we are not overwhelmed. My job is to promote “Ask?Away”. I’m not too enthused about doing that, so have chosen to just sandwich it in with a push I am doing about how to get information at your library. You know, reference desk, phone, email, IM (in your case anyway) and last is Ask?Away. It would be nice to feel like I can comfortably vouch for the system but…Oh, well. This to shall pass.

By: caleb tr

caleb tr — Thu, 22 Jun 2006 20:54:57 +0000

I disagree passionately that large VR collaboratives are faceless. In a collaborative environment, the first thing you do with a patron is tell them who you are. We’re hoping that profiles will help as well.

Of course, we have feedback from patrons both ways: collaboration is a great way to save money / I wish you were at my library.

The main problem that collaborative VR tries to address in Oregon is that only 80% of our citizens have access to a public library, even less have a reference librarian at that library, and schools? forget it.

BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY

Related to hellfire and damnation, preliminary data shows that since switching to “Flash Chat”, 39% of our patrons who submit a question never connect to the librarian. 39%! What … 39%!

By: Martha

Martha — Thu, 22 Jun 2006 20:54:32 +0000

I can give you a little comfort, I guess. We are up on questionpoint and although it is getting some use we are not overwhelmed. My job is to promote “Ask?Away”. I’m not to enthused about doing that so have chosen to just sandwich it in with a push I am doing about how to get information at your library. You know, reference desk, phone, email, IM (in your case anyway) and last is AskAway. It would be nice to feel like I can comfortable vouch for the system but…Oh, well. This to shall pass.