Reference at Newman Library

Author: Stephen Francoeur

Vendor Card Dispenser Problems Remain

The company that services our vendor card system did not let us know today that they left some of the orange 50 cent copy cards in the machine (as opposed to the usual 30 cent cards with 70 cents of value). If a someone gets an orange card out of the dispenser (a 50 cent card), you can send them to the chief librarian’s office on the 4th floor to fill out a complaint slip that will get them a 20 cent refund.

Tour of the New Reference Wiki

Over the summer, an assistant in the reference office, Moon-Seok King, helped us migrate all the wiki pages from the reference wiki from PBworks (a free, hosted wiki service we had been using for over four years) to Confluence (wiki software that the college has bought and installed on a server here on campus). As of now, you can begin using the reference wiki at this new location:

https://www.baruch.cuny.edu/confluence/display/lib/Reference+Wiki

You will want to bookmark this URL on your own computer so you can easily return to the wiki. Today, I’ll make sure that the link on the browser toolbars on the reference desk computers goes to this version of the wiki. This means that you should now rely on the new version of the wiki and not the old (I’ll delete the old wiki from PBworks very soon).

I’ve created a video tour of the new wiki that shows you how to:

  • log in (same user name and password that you use to login to computers here on campus)
  • search for content (there is a search box in the upper right corner)
  • edit a page (look for the “Edit” button in the upper right corner of any page)
  • log out

At the next ISD meeting, I hope to talk a bit more again about the new home of the wiki.

Video Intro to the New Reference Blog

Here is a short, narrated video tour of the newly re-launched Reference at Newman Library blog.

There are two buttons to get the video playing; the button on the left with the standard play icon (the little triangle) will play the video within the blog post page and the button on the right with the four arrows will open a full-screen version of the video that makes it easier to see all the detail.

Presentation and Discussion of Text Message Reference

Text messaging reference (a.k.a., SMS reference and text a librarian) is this year’s hot topic in reference services. Attend the next meeting of the Virtual Reference SIG on October 23 and find out what it is really like to handle queries from patrons when you are using text messages as your means of communication. Alexa Pearce from NYU Libraries will lead off our group’s informal discussion with a presentation about her library’s pilot program that uses texting for reference service. This event is free and open to all who share an interest in reference services in libraries.

When: October 23, 2009, 10 am – 12 noon

Where: Metropolitan Library Council of New York (57 East 11th Street, 4th floor, New York, NY) directions here

RSVP: Not required. Just show up and be ready to share ideas and opinions.

Video Tutorials at Ohio University Libraries

Ohio University Libraries have put together a nice collection of video tutorials on things like how to find a book, how to find an article, etc. Some of these are screencasts, while others are actual videos shot with a videocamera. The folks behind this project used WordPress to organize all the videos (each one is tagged).

If you’ve heard of Ohio University’s library before, it’s probably because of a couple of notable projects they’ve undertaken in the past:

Biz Wiki

Chad Boeninger created BizWiki, a subject guide on business resources, four years ago using wiki software and has done a really great job with it. Recently, on a post from his personal blog, he looked back over what he has learned as he’s developed this resource.

Video reference kiosk

A kiosk was set up on one of the upper floors of the library that featured a PC running Skype on it. From this PC kiosk, patrons can interact via video chat with librarians. Former Ohio University librarian, Char Booth, has done many presentations on this, including this one, and has written about it for Internet Reference Services Quarterly (I have a copy of the article if anyone wants to see it).