AskUsNow! using Twitter!

On our staff support site, we have 2 sections that *should* be updated with some frequency- recent questions and comments from customers.

Unfortunately, these sections have *not* been updated with as much frequency as Joe or I would like. Until now!

The recent questions section is now helped along by Twitter. Lots of libraries are twittering (see David Lee King's brief list here); it's an easy way to update "followers" on what you're doing. If you're totally confused, check out twitter.

Here's how we're using it
While doing my daily question review, I cut and paste the customer's question (sans any identifying information) into our Twitter. The updates get to our staff website using a Twitter badge. Many apps today have badges- flickr (we've got one of those on the sidebar of this page), librarything, del.icio.us, etc. It's a quick and easy way to integrate your many identities and accounts into one place.

AUN has a flickr!

Thank you to all who participated in the MPT telethon- we had a blast! And since it went over so well- we're thinking of doing it once or twice yearly! (MPT has telethon 4x yearly, but that's a bit much for us).

With all the pictures from the evening, we had cause enough to break out into our own flickr account! I've even added a "badge" to the sidebar over there >>>>
so you can see all the recent photos as they're added!

Thanks again to everyone!

A new tool for librarians: CiteBite

*this was also a message to the MDAUN listserv*

I have a fun new thing to tell you about that will help point customers to specific places on a website.

It's called CiteBite. It's a website that allows you cut and paste a quote from a website in, the source URL and it produces a URL that you can send a customer that will send them the page with the quote highlighted in yellow! This is a very handy thing to have around when you've got a text-heavy site that you're trying to maneuver through with a customer.

Show me how it works!
Say you had a customer who wanted to know about Art in 19th century France. You've pointed them to the page on the NGA website that can help them, but they're not seeing where you're trying to point them ("With the revolution, French painting resumed its moral and political purpose and embraced the style known as neoclassicism", second paragraph.)

You can go to CiteBite, enter "With the revolution, French painting resumed its moral and political purpose and embraced the style known as neoclassicism." into the Quote box, enter "http://www.nga.gov/collection/gallery/gg56/gg56-over1.html" into the source box and click Make Citebite.

You'll get this link: http://pages.citebite.com/x2q1r3s4s3pfr which highlights the area you were trying to point the customer to.

That's awesome! Are there any drawbacks?
A few. While I've done some testing to see if citebite pages show up in the page push area of QuestionPoint and it seems to work, there's no guarantee that it always will.

Also, if a page has frames or tables, it will show only the content in the frame/table that you're quoting from. This may be confusing to some customers as it might not look like the right page. To help, I'd still send the original website (http://www.nga.gov/collection/gallery/gg56/gg56-over1.html, for example) but use CiteBite if they're having trouble locating something within a page.

Thanks to Jim DeArmey @ BCPL for the tip & help with testing!

MPT Pledge Drive: Please Volunteer!

AskUsNow! to participate in the MPT Pledge Drive!

Date: Saturday, September 15, 2007
Time: 6:30 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. (evening)
Location: Maryland Public Television, 11767 Owings Mills Blvd., Owings Mills, MD 21117
Driving directions: http://www.mpt.org/about/directions.cfm

If you're interested in participating (and who wouldn't be?) send an e-mail to Joe Thompson and let him know!

Incentives: a free dinner, refreshments, 30 day pass to ANY Merritt Athletic Club in the area, and maybe even your very own limited edition AskUsNow! shirt!

Are you a librarian without business cards?
Do you go to schools or other locations to talk up AskUsNow! but have nothing to give folks that has your contact info?
Never fear! AskUsNow! business cards are here!

Seriously though, thanks to a suggestion from Julie Allinson (Calvert Library) at the Providers Meeting at MLA, we've created blank AskUsNow! business cards for all those who don't have employer-provided cards.

They're very spify- with a full color AUN logo on the left, and ample space for you to place a label with all your contact information on it. Check out the mock up at http://askusnow.info/partners/img/buscard.gif

We printed a limited run this time (only 2,000) but if they're in high demand, we can see about printing more.

If you're in need of business cards, please contact me (Julie) and I will send you some. Let me know how many you'd like (at least), and the best place to send them to you.

Remember, these are BLANK business cards. You are responsible for putting your information on them (and please do). We've left a standard label-sized space for you do to so.