RISG meeting 23 February 2010 Newcastle

1. Introductions

2. Slam the boards (http://answerboards.wikifoundry.com/page/Slam+the+Boards!) was discussed. The slam the boards sessions occur on or near the 10th of each month. Alerts are send via reference e-mail list a couple of days before each slam the boards session. Can be used as a marketing opportunity for libraries, for individual skill developments or for staff training purposes.

Fairfield Library times some of their reference training to coincide with slam the boards. These are done as small group (about 6 people) sessions. Staff find questions to answer and use three different resource sets to answer the question. The first is books in the library, the second is databases, the third is anywhere else. There is discussion between the staff about the resources they use, it can be a bit competitive (in a good way) as some have their answer voted best answer. This approach encouraged thinking about the answers and the resources used. It is stretching staff to reintroduce them to the in library collection. They use a training room. May need to negotiate access with IT.

3. Highlights from VALA Big ideas from VALA includes increased collaborations, more and more libraries and more diverse collections. Linked data (think Trove but lots bigger http://trove.nla.gov.au/) , searching with colour experiments from the National Library of Australia (http://ll04.nla.gov.au/) , use of technology to enhance the understanding of art works from the Louvre (http://www.museumlab.jp/english/). Need to work out the return on investment for libraries, and the importance of roving reference. OpenCalais to add value for searching http://www.opencalais.com/, and thinking about revolutionary library management systems

You can see the papers and presentations here http://www.vala.org.au/vala2010/prog2010.htm (may need to register for the site access – it is free)

4. Update on planning for Reference at the Metcalfe 4 May 2010 Suggestions including

• use of e-books in reference (would prefer a public library speaker – but this may not be possible for this subject area)
• Database statistics – how to promote. This led to a discussion about working with schools, and working with community groups so that they are aware of the range of statistics and other information available to them. Also discussion that sometime staff are so concerned they will select the ‘wrong’ database that they don’t use them at all. Consider grouping databases by subject as well as title. One library trained community groups in the use of statistics, community information database and other relevant resources which would help in writing grants, another library identified local sources of statistics and disseminated this information to councils.

5. Other business Question about adding links to the catalogues of neighbouring libraries when web design polices encourage not sending people from the website. Discussion around referral and interlibrary loan polices.

Question about Trove interface http://trove.nla.gov.au/ (use the feedback link at the bottom of each page to provide feedback about features of Trove.

6. Next meeting date and location The next meeting will be held 13 July at Albury, 2 – 4pm.

Web 2.0 and reference

• Reminder about participating in the State wide
• learning 2.0 and 2.1 courses – completion certificates are still be provided, and support is still available
• http://nswpubliclibrarieslearning2.blogspot.com/

ref wiki http://referenceandinformationservices.wikifoundry.com/ This is the wiki where the minutes and agenda live. Join the wiki and apply to be a writer (don’t forget to say you work in a NSW public library).

Show how to set up google alerts http://www.google.com/alerts Set up google alerts for your library and your council. This way you can find out what people are saying about your organisation without having to keep searching. You will find out about compliments as well as issues.

Alerts are also a useful tools for monitoring other topics of interest. They can be received as either e-mails or rss feeds.

RSS Consider using Google reader (https://www.google.com/accounts/ServiceLogin?service=reader&passive=1209600&continue=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2Freader%2F&followup=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2Freader%2F) or Bloglines (http://www.bloglines.com/login) to manage your rss feeds.

Arrange into folders, and delete them all when there are too many. Can monitor using just a few minutes a week of you scan and remain disciplined.

twitter http://twitter.com/ Useful way of following conferences of interest – can scan tweets to know which presentations to follow up on. Even if you don’t want to tweet you can set up an account and set up lists or follow people/organisations of interest (withouth doing any tweeting). If you tweet keep usual manners in mind (some people forget themselves)

Discussion of policies – Mosman Council has a clear twitter policy http://www.mosman.nsw.gov.au/web/external/twitter Also think about veracity of source – examples of http://twitter.com/jfk_1960 and http://twitter.com/jfk__1960 (the first is by an individual, the second by the JFK Presidential Library). Look at who is following the person/organisation you are interested in – may give clues about veracity.

Social media policies Draft social media policy available from http://nswpubliclibrarieslearning21.blogspot.com/2008/08/social-media-policies-do-you-have-one.html and see attached paper for some strategies for talking with Council IT.

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