vrd sessions

Four of the sessions I went to at VRD 2004 really stood out.

1

Deb Hutchinson and Michele Pye from the Vancouver Public Library (BC) presented We've Counted It - Now What?, about setting and using performance targets. The presenters discussed their process (and I am so enamored of the speakers' pronounciation) of evaluating their virtual reference service by comparing the level of service externally with similar-sized libraries and services - we were one - and internally with the service provided at their numerous branches.

We haven't used many performance targets and it's no secret that we need them. By not setting goals for the project, our librarians, administrators and funders have had come up with their own expectations and ideas about what we should be doing, and I'm positive that we've dissappointed some of them. Deb promised to send on the data, so we don't have to reinvent the wheel here for an external comparison, and I am happy that this session provided us with a very big wheel to start with.

2

Another session on evalution was by Jeffrey Pomerantz and Chuck McClure and it was called Evaluation of NCKnows, a Statewide Collaborative Chat Reference Service. No buzzwords here! That's exactly the program they gave.

Mostly, what I got out of this sessions was some ideas for ways to look at the data we have been collecting and what it might mean.For example, the number of questions a library is answering vs. the number of questions their patrons are asking. Is there an imbalance somewhere? And if so, how do we approach it?

One of the conclusions they presented was, "We are, in fact, reaching a new group of users". This is something a lot of us have assumed and have cited as a good reason for having a statewide digital reference service, but they found it to be true for North Carolina. Is it true for Oregon? We'll find out. They have posted more of their report online.

3

Nancy Foley (Seattle PL), Rita Kaiser (King County PL), Jennifer Reichert (Seattle PL) and Matthew Saxton (University of Washington, The Information School) doing Show Me Yours and I'll Show You Mine! Implementing Peer Review. I think this title was self-explanatory as well.

What I learned from this session was that if our librarians are going to learn from looking at transcripts, setting a tone in an evaluation process is very important, and that we are not afraid of getting feedback on our own transcripts. I was thinking, not so long ago, about letting all of us give each other on online transcripts, but now I think this envirnoment is too cold, and I want to encourage face to face meetings.

4

Teens and Chat Reference: A Match Made in Heaven or ... ? was stupendous and it was given by Louise Greene (Anne Arundel Community College, MD), Laura Kortz (New Jersey City University) and Sharon Morris (Colorado State Library).

The first part was a summary of health and psychology research on developing teen brains and their use of the internet. Like whoa. It is not often enough that we bring in research from outside librarianship into our professional literature and conversation. The review served as a reminder of what teens are like psychologically and it was kick in the pants telling me that virtual reference, and libraries, do not exist in a vacuum.

The session also gave practical tips for working with teens online in virtual reference, including the enlightening point that teens will very likely try the service and experiment with it to test its boundaries before turning to it for research. More than anything else, I realized that so far I haven't made enough of an effort to get youth librarians involved in L-net. We need their advice and experience to be successful.

All of this on the first day! Other sessions I went to today were interesting, but not inspiring enough for me to be writing summaries so close to bedtime.