NSW public library wiki

Donna Braye, Mosman; Geoff Potter, Central Coast; Michelle Nichols, Hawkesbury; Andrew Gee, Wollongong; Megan Pitt, Central Northern Regional Library; Vanessa Stockford.

Kathryn Joss, City of Sydney; Susan Manahan and Michelle Goldsmith, Central Coast; Kylie Tate, Singleton; Helen McDonald and Julie Evans, Sutherland; Catherine Johnston and Surinder Kaur, Coffs Harbour; Shiralee Franks, Central Northern Regional Library; Liz Griffiths and Cecilia Wong, Willoughby; Amy Heap, Riverina Regional Library; Lindy Allan, Macquarie Regional Library; Suzy Arthur-Smith, Richmond Tweed Regional Library; Michelle Head, Albury; Melanie Mutch, Hornsby; Sin Man Lau, Canterbury Bankstown; Ellen Forsyth, State Library of NSW.

How do you train new staff, and refresh the skills of existing staff

• Discussion about sustainability of practices
• Sometimes a knee jerk reaction to an immediate need
• Sutherland using monthly promotion of databases linked to themes –target staff and public training awareness
• City of Sydney structured database of the month – online awareness sessions taking each person 20 – 30 minutes. Is written in staff plans. Look at statistics to decide what to focus on. About 2/3 of library staff do the training each month. Previous training stays on file on the intranet, use Google forms to track participation
• Coffs Harbour had been doing structured training, more adhoc at the moment, based on recognised staffing needs
• Central Coast trains new staff with reference interview, Find legal answers and drug info, local studies overview
• Riverina Regional Library – annual training day for all staff (but done in five difference day long sessions), difference focus each year
• Sutherland – for new staff provide a reference overview, 1 day training for new staff, database training is available on the intranet, technology training is provided as needed
• City of Sydney – training in awareness of the corporate library for council staff, aiming for an awareness of library staff role, training in research process is also needed
• Hornsby is working through staff with Find legal answers and other training
• Bankstown – provides staff training in online sessions, need to complete an activity sheet. Some hands on experience, need staff familiarity with databases so they can promote to the public

Are there differences between roving reference and roving readers’ advisory? Challenges of roving – mostly from Tamworth

• Training staff (and staff do need training in roving)
• Important to follow up with staff
• Plan work so look ‘interruptible’ – for example take four books to shelve (not more as if take a trolley are too focused on shelving, if an armful, are too focused on shelving), this seems the amount to help with looking like are approachable
• Importance of keeping balance in service – keeping an eye on what is happening in the library
• Provide clear expectations to staff – for example at Tamworth all staff expected to rove, so all staff are trained to rove
• Tablets to help with roving – staff carry to the tablets (from discussion works best with robust wifi or dedicated staff wifi)

How do you measure the effectiveness of the reference and information services?

• Sutherland Library uses enquiry completion rate and database statistics
• Albury Library uses enquiry completion rate, database statistics and data from the customer services centre at Lavington
• Hornsby Library uses enquiry completion rate with a line for readers’ advisory data. This prompted a need to train people so they understood what a readers’ advisory enquiry looks like and that it is often a simple thing of someone asking about a known item.
• Central Coast- from Tuggerah, have combined council and library services with lots of directional queries.
• Tamworth – all staff rove, making evaluating services more interactive, help people before things escalate
• Question about how people record family history and local studies data
• Question about how online assistance is available
• Central Coast have an ‘ask a librarian’ link from many pages including for database access.
• Willoughby roving staff wear t-shirts with ‘ask me’ on the back
• Coffs Harbour has an online request form

Discussion about how people answer library questions out of hours (if they see them when online when personally using social media etc). Some log in to staff accounts and answer with a line about further information during office hours. Others leave for next day. Discussion was that answering straight away was good (but logged in as library staff not personal), but reminding people about library hours – so providing immediate help as well as promotion.

Fairly general discussion about using database statistics to plan for training for staff and public, promoting information

7. Other business 8. Next meeting – online in six months – 21 February.

This meeting was online, using Blue Jeans and with participation from corporate, local studies, readers’ advisory, reference and information services working groups.

Back to Reference and information services working group home page