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* Thursday, October 28, 2004

A Whole Shifted Conference

Jessamyn has posted her notes from the taking the library to our users conference at Dartmouth. I really wish I could have gone to this one, since it sounds very shifted. In terms of the present, I particularly liked her notes about the virtual reference session, although I think all of the statements would apply to VR done via free IM accounts, too.


"same or greater use than email - drop-off during mealtimes and SATURDAYS
'why don't patrons ask for help?" 27% don't want to go to library building ALSO librarian looks 'too busy'
people use live chat even IN the library
what we learned 'we don't like it but patrons do'
text messaging eliminated a lot of technical issues"

The sessions about taking reference to where the users are sound interesting, too, as that is the direction in which libraries need to shift. We have to start thinking out of the 4-walls box and find new places (both virtual and physical) to meet patron information needs.

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