The L-net Quality team is meeting monthly.
Stephanie Debner, Portland Community College
Barbara O'Neill, Washington County Cooperative Library Services
Emily Papagni, Multnomah County Library
Notable Transcripts
Mentoring Program
Quality Team Minutes Sept. 6, 2006
In Attendance: Barbara, Crystal, Emily, Michele
Emily reviewed current and past initiatives to improve service quality.
* Caleb has posted transcripts on the Buzz at http://www.oregonlibraries.net/buzz? and encouraged librarians to rate outstanding transcripts.
* Librarians have been encouraged to hold in-person evaluation transcript sessions.
* Emily and Caleb have communicated with OCLC about problem transcripts by QP Backup staff and Cooperative librarians.
* Emily monitors transcripts of new L-net librarians and provides feedback
* Emily has begun reviewing one shift per week on a rotating schedule. The basis for evaluating scripts is the Service Philosophy http://www.oregonlibraries.net/philosophy?.
Emily suggested the Quality Team provide librarians a positive balance to the corrective feedback she gives. Ideas of how to do that
* On a regular basis highlight outstanding transcripts to be posted on L-net staff website and emailed to L-net listserv
* Encourage listserv discussions by posing questions about how a particular situation could have been handled better
There appears also to be a need for improvements in the quality of email transcripts.
Goal:
By Oct. 6 team members will identify outstanding transcripts. An outstanding transcript should follow the best practice guidelines, establish rapport with the patron, and give a good answer. Team members will use transcripts on the Buzz and will discuss them among themselves via email.
Housekeeping
* We will meet on the first Wednesday of every month if there is an agenda
* Each of us will commit to serve on the team for at least 6 months
* We will use the Wiki to post minutes of our meetings
* Committee members will alphabetically rotate note-taking and posting responsibilites
Agenda items for next meeting - Wed. Oct. 4th, 2:00 - 3:30
* Discuss ways to focus training sessions on quality for experienced L-net librarians
* Identify outstanding transcripts
* Discuss if we should post criticisms of transcripts
In attendance: Emily, Barbara, Michele, and Crystal
Training Ideas for experienced Librarians
* software tips and tricks including: cobrowsing, transferring calls, creating scripts, creating profiles, following up and closing questions
* using freely-available authoritative resources (when using licensed or proprietary resources aren't an option)
* possibly more training on serving K-12 and using existing L-net resources for this (http://www.oregonlibraries.net/homework?)
Training Idea for administrators
* filling out their library's policy page
Ideas for Generating Discussion on listserv
* ideas of posting reference questions and transcripts were discussed
* group agreed that posting transcripts from Oregon librarians would put people in spotlight too much
* decided to post reference questions for ideas of where people would look?
Identifying Good Transcripts
* several good transcripts were identified
* means of "rewarding" successful transcripts will be public recognition via the L-net listserv
* group agreed to re-visit highlighting of transcripts until we have a larger pool of successful transcripts to send out
* Emily shared handout on evaluating chat reference sessions
November meeting
* will revisit and confirm training ideas to forward to the training committee
* will go over more good transcripts we've collected
In attendance: Emily, Barbara, Michele, and Crystal
Discussion of program to recognize outstanding transcripts
* The Team shared transcripts that each member had found on the Buzz and discussed what the merits of each transcript are, keeping in mind L-net's Service Philosophy, Guidelines, and OCLC's Best Practices.
* The Team decided to invite other L-net librarians to nominate outstanding transcripts for recognition. Librarians can nominate themselves or a colleague.
* The deadline for accepting nominations will be Dec. 31.
* Michele will compose an announcement inviting librarians to nominate transcripts.
Curriculum for experienced L-net librarians
* The Team will continue to work on gathering ideas for a curriculum and will discuss at a future meeting.
* The Team hopes to meet with the Training Team at some point to discuss this.
Next meeting
Wednesday, Dec. 6, 1:00 - 2:30
In attendance: Barbara O’Neill, Crystal Knapp, Michele Burke, Emily Papagni
Phone conference, December 6, 2006, 1:00pm.
Nominations of excellent transcripts
* Request for nominations went out. We have not yet received feedback, but Emily has been asked how to access the Buzz, so there is some activity and getting more people to look at the buzz is a positive result
* Emily will send out a reminder to the list
* We have found some great transcripts and are tracking the ones we like. Crystal is keeping a short list of those emailed since last meeting. If we do not receive nominations, then we will wait until the deadline is closer and submit our formal nominations with written descriptions of why we think certain transcripts are outstanding
* We plan to award the winner(s) and do not plan to say anything about the runners-up. We will keep a back pocket of good transcripts (note: at some point may consider developing a scoring rubric)
Transcripts mentioned in emails from us…discussion of characteristics we like
* We are considering whether to honor more than one kind of transcript, perhaps long and short, because they involve different skills
* Janeanne from Western (spent a fair amount of time, long, detailed interaction and this is the third mentioned from her).
* Robin from PCC (relates well to patrons, does a good job with very young patrons, though she works in an academic environment)
* A couple of transcripts mentioned
*) 1983407 (ID to look at from Barbara…using print…asks clarifying questions)
*) 1867019 (Journal of organometalics)
*) 2007705 (librarian does a nice job keeping the tone warm but professional when the patron asks for medical advice)
* How shall we honor the best transcript(s)?
*) Announce in OLA L-net session (but we do not have a session)
*) Caleb will do something for preconference, but may not have the opportunity to make an announcement
*) May be appropriate to announce a number of ways: on the listserv, on the blog, a poster or plaque at the L-net booth, laminate the transcript and use as a talking point for librarians that come into the booth, create a handout, present the award at the L-net summit in May or June in Bend
* Team still likes the idea of having a quarterly award (even if we do not receive any nominations)
* Emily encourages all of us to attend the L-net summit in Bend (date to be determined)
Looking at horrible transcripts works because it emphasizes desirable characteristics and how to recognize a good transcript. How might we expose others to more transcripts?
* Worth reminding people to read their own transcripts so they catch and report problems
* Perhaps try to organize something where new/volunteers are encouraged to read transcripts
* Expectation of providing service that someone reads the transcripts (perhaps the person who reads the emails). Good to leave it up to the individual library to organize according to what works for them
* Team will send a reminder email and encourage libraries to review and report. The email should include technical how-to’s (which folders have what and how to access and review) what happens based on the resolution code (e.g., if coded as ‘lost call’ it ends up in the closed folder). Perhaps remind to put into follow-up status. Reminder that reviewing transcripts from your patrons is an expectation of service. Encourage L-net librarians to report problems as well as to report good work from Oregon librarians and Cooperative and Backup librarians who often deserve a pat on the back)
* Emily to type up something next week
Curriculum topic shelved until next meeting
Next meeting: Thursday, Jan. 11, 2007 at 2:00pm
In attendance: Barbara O’Neill, Michele Burke, Emily Papagni
Phone conference, January 11, 2:00pm.
Minutes by Barbara
Name of the Award
Discomfort about calling the award the "Best" transcript, as there are so many good ones. It's difficult to determine that one transcript is better than all the others. Maybe call it Highlighed Transcript of the Quarter (or whatever period of time we're talking about).
Criteria
We are judging the transcripts according to the criteria Michele posted to the L-net listserv on November 28. We clarified what we meant by criterion 4 (asking follow-up questions, such as "is this what you're looking for?") and criterion 5 (offering more help, such as "Is there anything else I can help you with today?")
Grading Transcripts
Using each person's short list of good transcripts, we compiled a list of 8 that we looked at in detail, and then narrowed the final list to 3. There is one more we want to look at before we make a final decision.
Next Meeting
Next meeting January 17, 12:30-2.
In attendance: Barbara O’Neill, Michele Burke, Emily Papagni
Phone conference, January 18, 2007, 2:00pm.
Minutes: Emily
Transcript Award:
The Team has narrowed down the nominations to four which should receive final consideration. The Team discussed the merits of each transcript and further narrowed the pool down to two. It was decided to recognize both final transcripts.
Emily will compose a draft of an announcement, including the criteria the Team used, and will get feedback from Michele and Barbara via email. Emily will also discuss options for announcing the award with Caleb.
The Team discussed whether or not to refer to the highlighted transcripts as receiving an award. There was agreement that this should not be perceived as a competition. The highlighted transcripts will be referred to as "Notable transcripts".
The process of deciding on notable transcripts has been very time-consuming for the Team, but there is consensus that it will be easier next time, now that the Team has a process for soliciting and evaluating transcripts. Next time we will also limit nominations to a specific time period.
Other:
Barbara and Michele initially agreed to serve on the Team for 6 months and have agreed to remain on the Quality Team for another 6 months. Other L-net librarians are always welcome to join the Quality Team (and any other L-net team).
The next meeting will be Wednesday, Feb. 7, 2:00. The agenda may include:
Evaluation of the Notable Transcripts recognition
Refresher curriculum for experienced L-net librarians
Possible involvement with L-net Summit
In attendance: Emily, Barbara, Michele and Crystal (phone)
Minutes by Michele
L-net Summit Participation
The Team will wait to hear from the Summit meeting team and see what they have in mind for our role
Housekeeping
- Michele will let the team know if she can participate after she starts at Chemeketa
- Crystal will let us know whether or not she is able to continue participating on the Quality Team
Notable Transcripts
- Caleb and Emily to deliver flowers and certificates
- Caleb writing letters to directors at Western Oregon University and Tigard Public
- Emily to post announcement on listservs
- Order something with the L-net logo to have on hand? Table and decide later
- First time choosing transcripts was time consuming, but the Team agreed to do it again and suspects it will be easier/faster the second time around
- Next notable transcript(s) will be chosen from Winter quarter
- Team to send a reminder message to nominate outstanding transcripts as librarians encounter them when reviewing their patron transcripts
Policy Pages
- At the request of the Training Team, the Quality Team discussed ways to encourage libraries to create and maintain policy pages
- When policy pages are not filled out, it affects the quality of service L-net librarians can provide
- The Quality Team agreed that it is not feasible for L-net staff to create and maintain policy pages for libraries that do not have them (time consuming, risk of posting incorrect information, hard to maintain and keep current). Team discussed possible ways to note in the transcript that a policy page is not available. Team also discussed the possiblity of contacting libraries that do not officially participate in L-net, but whose patrons do visit.
Next meeting: March 7th, 2:00pm, conference call
L-net Quality Team meeting, 3/28/2007
In attendance: Barbara, Emily, Michele (phone), Steve
Introductions
* Emily welcomed Steve to the committee.
* Michele explained that in her new job at Chemeketa she will be able to continue on the team, but she doesn't know yet if she'll be able to staff the service.
* No feedback received about last quarter's award, but recipients were excited and pleased. Caleb also is pleased that we're awarding exemplary service.
* Emily sent out message on L-net listserv to encourage nominations for this quarter. Criteria were listed in the message. Deadline is April 15.
* Team members will also evaluate transcripts, make nominations, and forward them to eachother by April 27. We divided the work into 3-week increments.
* Barbara will send Steve a grid to use for notes and scoring.
* Emily will ask Caleb to add to the Buzz a search field that would allow specifying a date range.
Summit
* The Summit planning committee has asked the Quality Team if they would be interested in presenting a program on emerging best practices. We need clarification before we can respond, but we thought of some things we would like to present: report our findings on how often best practices are used (for example, x% of the time librarians don't conduct a reference interview); how to quickly find the information you need on a library's policy pages; how various specific non-Oregon library systems operate; divide into small groups to evaluate transcripts and talk about what's bad in them (use out-of-state transcripts).
* Emily will ask for clarification of what planning committee wants
Buzz
* Caleb has incorporated a way to limit Buzz searches by Oregon librarians.
* Caleb perceives a problem with transcripts not appearing on the Buzz immediately upon importing and asked for input on an effective work-around for this. The team didn't think the problem would affect our work but if any of his proposed work-arounds would make it easier for us to limit searches by date, we would want him to implement them.
Future of Team
* Emily explained that her curriculum for training new providers is in flux.
* Team members thought training for experienced providers would be useful. We would like to see training on co-browsing and other software subtleties as well as best practices.
* Michele suggested we report our findings after we make our next Quality Award for use by Caleb and Emily at any time.
Next Meeting--May 2, 2007 2:00-3:30
L-net Quality Team meeting, 8/15/2007 In attendance: Barbara, Emily, Steve
Minutes by Barbara
Old Business
*Emily will contact someone at Emporia to see if students there would be interest in reviewing transcripts to help with choosing recipients for future Quality Awards.
Quality Awards
* The team looked at several nominated transcript and did not choose any. They decided to read more and meet again Sept. 26 at 2 p.m.
Next Meeting--Sept. 26 2:00-3:00 p.m.
L-net Quality Team meeting, 9/26/2007
In attendance:
Barbara, Emily
Michele via phone
Quality Awards
* The team looked at several nominated transcripts and discussed how they meet the team's notable criteria. Michele will attempt to read some of the spring quarter transcripts that have not been read yet and the team will continue to discuss over e-mail.
L-net Quality Team meeting, 11/14/2007
In attendance:
Barbara, Emily, Caleb
Michele via phone
A decision was made for a notable transcript and final details will be worked out over email.
The team discussed the future of the notable recognition and future work of the team.
Caleb to work on making Buzz easier to navigate in order to review transcripts
We brainstormed various ways to encourage transcript review (working with library school students, offer Quality Team work as a way to gain [reference] experience, push rubric to member libraries and ask them to review transcripts answered by their librarians…)
Caleb to attend next meeting to help the team continue to find a more efficient way to work on quality.
Quality team is reflecting on goals of the team, how to encourage new members, alternatives and/or compliments to the transcript recognition process we have been doing.
L-net meeting minutes, January 16, 2008.
In attendance: Caleb, Emily, Barbara and Michele
Agenda: Notable Transcripts, other projects, purpose of quality team
1. Notable Transcripts
The group agrees that they are valuable but time consuming
The group discussed how best to proceed with Notables
More committee members?
Review fewer transcripts
Lower our standards (nominate transcripts that don’t meet all criteria outlined in rubric)
What makes a good transcript? Good dialogue? Interesting questions
2. Other Projects
Visits from Caleb and Emily to L-net participants to discuss common issues with software, transcript discussion, how to review transcripts. Group considered creating a piece that Caleb and Emily can use with providers to discuss quality.
Emily will meet with Bob Schroeder to talk about how his Emporia class at PSU can review transcripts and nominate notable transcripts. Caleb will give them access to transcripts since July 1, 2007. They will use the notable criteria as a starting point. Caleb will create a separate Buzz page for students. Students will be encouraged to forward transcripts that need scrubbing and leave comments about individual transcripts on the Buzz.
Emily will post an announcement on the listserv requesting notable nominations for the summer and fall quarters.
L-net Summit
Quality Team Brainstorming, March 20, 2008 (Barbara, Emily, Caleb, Michele)
Notes on Session
Introduce rubric (history, examples, explain flexibility, review of a notable)
Small Group Activity
• How will the tables be set up? Rounds or classroom style?
• Plan for a large group
• Give each group a transcript (two groups may have the same transcript)
• Allow time for group to review (put directions on the overhead)
• Project transcript on overhead for discussion
• Ask for feedback about the rubric and allow time for discussion
• Conclusion: review another notable
o Need: laser pointer
o Need: transcripts (Caleb to send backup librarian transcripts- see notes below)
o Need: brainstorm examples for each rubric category
o Need: bookmark size/business card size handout with rubric on one side
Each of us will examine transcripts with a rubric characteristic in mind:
o Introduction-Michele
o Ref interview & clarifying questions- Emily
o Cheerful welcoming tone-Emily
o Uses authoritative resources-Barbara
o Asks follow-up questions-Barbara
o Conclusion/Offers more help-Michele
Notes
ASAP: title and quick description for program to Caleb by next week
L-net Quality Team
July 14, 2009
Stephanie, Caleb, Emily, Barbara
Reminder to search the library literature for articles about the necessity of the reference interview in chat.
Ideas of ways quality could be improved
· Up-to-date policy pages for each library – EP will ask libraries to do this. If they don’t do it, this team will divide up what’s left
· Increase the speed with which questions are picked up
· Video on how NOT to staff L-net. Opposite of the rubric elements
· Have mentors for new staff.
o Groups of 5 or so to review transcripts.
o Mentors would be available during shifts for helping
o Mentors read and comment on transcripts for first 30 days
o Mentors look at technical codes
o Share professional thoughts and articles
o Meet for beer at conferences
o Should be from different library than mentee
o Mentees must be open to comments
o Assess core competencies
o Be a resource
Committee will meet again in a month.
In attendance: Barbara O’Neill, Emily Papagni, Stephanie Debner
Note: The team decided to leave meeting scheduling flexible, with each meeting day/time determined at the previous meeting. The team’s next meeting will be on Tuesday, September 29 at 3:00 p.m.
1. Policy page follow-up
a. Emily has heard from some libraries about their policy pages, either that they have been updated or that an update is planned.
b. The team divided up the list of policy pages to check for updates and update ourselves if necessary. If there are contact people missing, the team is to e-mail Emily for that information.
c. Barbara asked what L-Net staffers (Oregon) should do if Ohio librarians send a question into follow-up that could have been answered had they looked at the policy pages? Emily would like these transcripts to be sent to her or Caleb for follow-up.
ACTION ITEM: Team members will review/update policy pages by the next meeting.
2. Virtual reference research
a. Spurred by the difference emphasis given to the reference interview by L-Net and Oregon librarians, Emily proposed that we investigate the literature on virtual reference and the importance of the reference interview. In her own research, she found that not much was currently being written about the reference interview; rather, she found research about the importance of establishing rapport with the online patron.
b. As a follow-up to this, Caleb had suggested that L-Net librarians do their own research about the reference interview and its place in chat reference; this research would serve as an update to Caleb and Loree Hyde’s 2006 article.
ACTION ITEM: Solicit interested parties to conduct/write up research. Possibilities: Stephanie Debner, Michele Burke (Chemeketa). Emily will contact Michele about her interest in this.
3. How to and how not to staff L-Net: videos
a. No more than 2 minutes each
b. 2 companion videos: one on best practices (what to do) and one on what not to do
c. The team will need to recruit actors and create a storyboard or script that lays out the main ideas we want to get across.
d. Videos can be posted on the L-Net site and used for trainings.
ACTION ITEM: Team to brainstorm points that the video(s) should make by the next meeting.
4. Mentoring program
a. The discussion of this topic has good timing, as Emily has a number of trainings coming up and she would like to be able to announce that the program is starting up.
b. The team determined initial parameters for the program:
i. The mentor will not work at the same library as the mentee.
ii. New L-Net staffers will be enrolled in the mentoring program as soon as they have completed L-Net training (with Emily) and assigned to a mentor.
iii. The mentor should be initially available as someone with whom the mentee can practice.
iv. The mentor should be available during the mentee’s first few live shifts and/or the mentor should read through transcripts and give feedback to the mentee (this is especially important if the mentor is not able to be available during the mentee’s first few shifts).
v. The mentor and mentee will both commit to 3-6 months in the mentoring program. Since traffic and number of shifts vary quite a bit, we thought that this timeframe would provide ample time for the mentee to feel comfortable staffing the service and for the mentor to provide feedback and other pearls of wisdom.
vi. At the end of the 3-6 month period, both mentor and mentee will complete a short evaluation/survey of the mentoring experience. Feedback will be used to improve the program so that it can best meet the needs of L-Net staffers.
c. Since this is a new/pilot program and we’re not sure about levels of participation, the team decided to prioritize L-Net participants for mentoring: (1) new staffers at partner libraries; (2) new staffers in the volunteer program; and (3) people staffing their own service.
ACTION ITEM: Stephanie will draft a mentor recruitment e-mail to be sent out to the list.
5. The item on screencasting was tabled.
6. Homework assignment pages.
a. With the goal of building up the list of homework assignment pages as a valuable resource for staffers, the team decided to solicit memories of assignment topics from the list.
ACTION ITEM: Emily will send out a message to the list to solicit assignment topics.
7. Notable transcripts.
a. While this recognition program is currently on hiatus, it was suggested that we might start reviewing transcripts for e-mail answers to acknowledge the excellent, in-depth work that is done on these kinds of questions. This suggestion came from Laura Orr in response to the excellent work done on a patron’s e-mail question by another law librarian.
b. This item is under review and will be kept on the agenda for future meetings.
8. Policy pages for libraries who are not partner libraries
a. As a follow-up to the L-Net statistics of number of questions by library compiled and sent out by Caleb on 8/14/09, Emily made a list of all non-partner libraries with over 40 questions. She thought it would be helpful to develop policy pages for these libraries, if possible, to assist L-Net staffers; she was also thinking about contacting these libraries to see if someone would be available for e-mail/follow-up work with their patrons.
b. This item will be revisited at the next meeting.
ACTION ITEM: Emily will set up/update policy pages for Cornelius, Forest Grove, and Tualatin (Washington Co.) and for Lake Oswego, West Linn, and Wilsonville (Clackamas Co.)