…or why you should look at your referrers once in a while.

I’ve been blogrolled(!) by lbr(a blog about virtual reference for librarians by request) and browsing through the entries I found “To chat or not to chat”.

Anyone who’s participated in an online community for long knows that certain topics tend to come up again in cycles. It looks like it’s time for Virtual Reference. A recent post on one of my lists asks why don’t more people use virtual reference?

Like most questions, it’s deceptively simple and the best way to find out would be to ask them. However, that’s rarely practical on a library’s limited budget. Luke reports from Coffman and Arret:

While some decide to pull the plug, they suggested, others can look for ways to get more bang for their buck, by improving marketing, reducing costs (including reducing staff costs by employing contract services), joining consortia, and carefully considering software features and cost relative to their needs. Some of their more challenging ideas included taking another look at telephone reference (even round-the-clock!), improving email or other asynchronous options that are more economical to offer, and improving the “self-service” online features available on library websites.

I’m not going to go too far into marketing but once our “Ask a Librarian” email form was linked to from the library’s homepage, its use went up at least 200-300%.

aaron schmidt inadvertently offers one possible problem in walking paper: finally. Unfortunately, there are several Instant Messaging formats which have no interopperability. Picture needing a different email address depending on who your friends’ email host is. Using just one account excludes those patrons who have another type but juggling multiple accounts can be complicated and difficult for even a master geek.