Home again Home again

I have returned - a day after I'd planned and punch drunk with fatigue, but at my desk with piles of notes and an overflowing email box (see see, this is why blogs are good - the emails are about half listserves).

My plane never took off as planned last night, due to lightening (total rip off, I never actually got to SEE any!)

I spent my last night of socializing with Marie Radford, a Rutgers prof who has written prodigious material on Virtual Reference and was one of the plenary panel - extremely astute and refreshingly frank, and her enthusiasm for what we do shines out of every word (and I LOVE that Jersey attitude!) Phil and I hope to get her here for BCLA....


So much of what I learned is still spinning round in my head - as I've said, there are reams of notes to get to and organize.

Standouts and themes: evaluation. VR affords us the opportunity of looking carefully at our own performances - we get word for word transcripts. This is hugely valuable opportunity for self and peer evaluation that face to face reference practice doesnt have (unless we start filming ourselves lol). So if you don't go back and look over transcripts, DO!

Mentoring - a couple of places have a mentoring program for new VR operators (what do we like to be called - staff? operators? virtual librarians? Clyde? - ok, I am really really really tired). I think this is a brilliant idea. Those of us who have been Askawaying for nearly two years now have built up a level of skill and comfort that we can pass on to our newbies. Hopefully you are doing this to an extent amongst your own library folks, but it would be nice to see an official program. Any volunteers?

Service excellence - It's all about the patrons. They love VR, and BCer's seem to love it A LOT! We swaped some numbers with other services (hard to get really accurate comparisons for various reasons), but its pretty obvious AskAway is up there at the front of the pack when it comes to patron demand. Good for us!

We need to look at ways to reach even more BCers and Yukoners - see if you can get local organizations to put the AskAway logo/link on their webpage! Hang out a Community events and pass out those bookmarks! (that's what I'M doing on Saturday). Be creative! There are people in our province and territory who need us and don't know about us! That should be keeping you up at night!

ok ok, I'm ranting and I really really need some sleep...but first, the Chocolate Buffet at the Sutton Place with the soon to be defunct Virtual Reference team.