Since January 6, I have had a total of eleven IM sessions with business students. Of these , nine were basically your run-of-the-mill reference questions. Most had questions about industry ratios, market shares, or SWOT analyses. However, the last two interactions were a little more unique. The first encounter occurred last Thursday. The question started... Continue Reading →
Library Instruction & Information Literacy Resources
LibraryInstruction.com has a wealth of resources about information literacy and library instruction. This site contains library instruction lesson plans, articles about library instruction, a large library instruction bibliography, and links to library instruction resources. This site also includes material relating to information literacy. The Lesson Plans section of the site appears to be really interesting,... Continue Reading →
WordPress Upgrade
I have finally gotten around to updating this blog with the latest version of WordPress. Everything ran pretty smoothly, although I did have some problems with my comments template. It turns out that my previous iteration of the comments template (which I have had since WP 1.0) needed to be tossed. I simply copied the... Continue Reading →
Spreading the word about RSS
I taught an RSS workshop about a month ago, and only recently did I think to blog about my experiences. I have been a little overwhelmed the last few weeks, so my blogging has suffered immensely. I have even been so busy that I had to ignore (gasp!!) my aggregator. This was the second workshop... Continue Reading →
Using IM to Lure Them IN
One of the arguments for using Instant Messaging as a reference tool is that the technology allows the librarian to go to where the users are. However, the tool can also be used to get the patrons to come to you. On Wednesday night I had a business student IM me. Wednesday is my usual... Continue Reading →
WordPress 1.5 Released
I am a little late with this, but WordPress 1.5 was released last week. I updated two of our library blogs on Sunday in about an hour. The directions offered by Podz made my upgrades a snap. I followed everything to a "T" and it worked flawlessly. Now I simply have to find time to... Continue Reading →
Repeat IM Customer
I had another IM reference interaction tonight. The really cool thing about this particular interaction is that it was someone who had IMed me about a month ago. While business is a little slow, it's nice to know that I am at least getting repeat customers. I first put my IM profiles on my contact... Continue Reading →
IM Usage Statistics
After delivering library instruction to several first-year business classes, I gave the students a short survey to fill out. Most of the questions were aimed to provide feedback about the instruction session. The last question was about instant messaging usage. I asked: If you use instant messaging (IM), which service do you use? If you... Continue Reading →
Inspirational IM Success Stories
Sarah at Librarian in Black and Michael at Tame The Web have both posted some updates on their libraries' Instant Messaging reference programs. Both services seem to be returning excellent numbers and are excellent examples of reaching out to the patrons. Both libraries are supporting the big three clients (AIM, Yahoo! IM, and MSN Messenger),... Continue Reading →