Using Holidays to market AskUsNow!: Thanksgiving 2008

Maryland AskUsNow! is using T-day as an opportunity to do some preemptive reference. On it’s MySpace and Facebook pages, fans and friends of AskUsNow! saw a list of resources put together by AskUsNow! on various Holiday-related questions we hope will answer FAQ's and remind them AskUsNow! is a resource for them. Check it out:

Thanksgiving is tomorrow. Are you prepared for the food, family, and fun?

To help you have a happy, safe, and healthy holiday, we’ve put together some resources we hope you’ll find useful.

Happy Thanksgiving from all your friends at Maryland AskUsNow! (We’re thankful for librarians and all our friends like you!)

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What do I do with this Turkey?
Butterball’s Thanksgiving guide is complete with shopping lists, conversations, thawing guides, seating, safety, what to do with leftovers, and more:
http://www.butterball.com/tips-how-tos/tips/thanksgiving-guide

I may need to know CPR
http://health.howstuffworks.com/cpr2.htm
(TIP: don’t know what the timing is? hum the Bee Gee’s Stayin Alive for the right rhythm (http://www.webmd.com/heart/news/20081017/cpr-gives-stayin-alive-new-life))

Need to have a Vegetarian Thanksgiving?
Check out Mahalo’s suggestions: http://www.mahalo.com/How_to_have_a_vegetarian_thanksgiving or eHow’s “How to choose a Turkey Substitute for your Vegan T-day” http://www.ehow.com/how_4599009_turkey-substitute-vegan-thanksgiving-dinner.html

Worried about handling the family stress?
Check out the Mayo Clinic’s 12 tips for coping: http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/stress/MH00030 or the Family Guide’s Guide to Managing Holiday Stress: http://family.samhsa.gov/be/holidaystress.aspx

Want to send your thanks to our military?
Go to http://www.usa.gov/Topics/Usgresponse/Help.shtml#vgn-support-our-troops-vgn to send care packages, donate calling cards, or write letters, emails, or text messages of gratitude.

What’s the real story behind Thanksgiving?
History.com tells the tale of the First Thanksgiving: http://tinyurl.com/6jwxzx and what was actually on the menu. Also check out the Smithsonian’s site at http://www.si.edu/Encyclopedia_SI/nmah/thanks.htm

Have kids to entertain?
Print out some coloring book pages here: http://coloring-page.net/thanksgiving.html or here: http://www.preschoolcoloringbook.com/color/cpthanksgiving.shtml or here: http://holidays.kaboose.com/thanks-color.html

Interested in Thanksgiving Facts?
The U.S. Census Bureau can help: http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/facts_for_features_special_editions/012692.html

Traveling?
Check out highway conditions at http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/Trafficinfo/

The Federal Aviation Administration can tell you what the status of flights and airport delays are: http://www.fly.faa.gov/flyfaa/usmap.jsp

What is Thanksgiving like at the White House?
http://www.whitehouse.gov/holiday/thanksgiving/2008/

Want to volunteer this holiday?
http://www.usa.gov/Citizen/Topics/PublicService.shtml

Have a question about something else? Get answers at www.askusnow.info We’re available 24/7, even on Thanksgiving!

Happy Holidays,
Your friends at Maryland AskUsNow!

Update: this went over REALLY well! A lot of people on facebook shared it with other people and it seemed to catch on a viral quality! yay!

Tips for Quicker Searching

Want to make your chatting experience more enjoyable or make your life easier? Here are some tips to help you move quickly through the many screens you are likely to have open while helping a customer:

Used tabbed browsing whenever possible for your searching. Mozilla Firefox or IE7 are browswers with tabs.
When monitoring Chat, you have you’re My QuestionPoint screen open, the Flash Chat monitor, and another window you're searching in. To avoid having multiple instances of your browser open, used a browser with tabbed browsing for searching. This will help you keep things tidy and easily findable as well as keep your computer running smoothly.

Close out extraneous search windows/tabs in between sessions
Regardless of whether you used tabbed browsing or not, close out any websites you had open for the previous customer before you pick up another one. This way, you can start from scratch with only your MyQP, Chat monitor, and a search window open.

Minimize all you open windows at once to the task bar using [Windows Key + m]
If you have a ton of windows open and you just want to start over to re-open only the windows you need, hit the windows key and "m" and all your open windows will minimize themselves to the task bar.

Quickly navigate between open windows with [Alt + Tab]
Instead of clicking through your task bar, use Alt + Tab to bring up a little menu of all the windows you have open. WIth Alt held down, hit Tab until you get to the window you want to open and then release the keys to open that window.

Use Notepad or Wordpad to cut and paste your URLs for easier finding
This tip is thanks to Jim DeArmey of BCPL. Jim uses a Notepad or Wordpad window to Copy and paste the URLs he’s going to send to customers before he sends it to them in case he needs to repaste it again quickly. To Copy and Paste quickly, use the keyboard commands. Copy = [Ctrl + c]. Paste = [Ctrl + v].

Do you have more tips for easier chatting? Let me know or post it directly to the blog!

New Look & Feel to the Flash Chat Librarian Interface

Coming with the November 23rd install (Sunday @3am), the Flash Chat librarian interface is getting a face lift. While the functionality remains the same (except it's faster!), it looks much better and has a lot of new features that I think people will love.

Check out the 1hr-long QuestionPoint webinar for a tour through the new interface. 

Check out the screenshots with some annotations by me.

Welcome our newest partner library: The MD State Department of Natural Resources Library!

I am pleased to officially announce the Maryland State Department of Natural Resources Library is now an AskUsNow! Partner Library!

The Carter Library and Information Resource Center is the Maryland Department of Natural Resources' central source for information, serving the needs of DNR staff, researchers, and the public. The DNR Library is a state funded library headquartered in Annapolis. The director, Ann Wheeler, has joined us as both liaison and referral provider.

Ann is now ready to receive follow-up questions from other Maryland AskUsNow! partners. When you use the "Refer To" menu in the Full Question view, select "Partner (Subscription)" and click the little grey arrow. You will then see the MD State Dept of Natural Resources in the dropdown list of our partner libraries.

What kinds of things can the DNR library help with?

• Current programs conducted by the Dept. of Natural Resources, including water quality monitoring, bay grass restoration, oyster restoration, fisheries management, blue crab management, etc.
• History of environmental protection in Maryland and Chesapeake Bay
• State parks and state park history in Maryland
• Natural history of Maryland
• Natural areas in Maryland
• Smart growth in Maryland
• Chesapeake Bay Program
• Endangered/threatened/rare plants and animals in Maryland
• Volunteer stream monitoring

Please join me in welcoming Ann and DNR and start referring questions! :-)

WebSearch University

I was lucky enough to attend the WebSearch University conference this past September in Washington D.C.

Websearch University draws from a broad cross-section of the library and information world. Most attendees come from the private sector, rather than the academic/public library community, but many of the resources discussed are useful for all types of online reference.

The conference provided information about Internet trends, specific search advice, and a look at alternative search engines and tools. To see the program, go to:
http://www.websearchu.com/2008/

The Future of Search—Danny Sullivan, SearchEngineland

The trend is ‘blended search,’ where search engines query many forms and formats. He pointed out that Google Universal Search queries books, image, news, video—no longer just page links and documents. Look for more use of personalized and social search. Google now has the capability to customize search results based on what “you personally do or visit.”

His prediction—Google will remain the dominant search engine for the next 3-5 years.

His website covers the trends: http://www.searchengineland.com/

News in Review, Ran Hock, Online Strategies

An overview of resources for finding national and international sources of information. Some are searchable by geographic location, others by subject. Here are a few to look at:

Kidon Medialink—information about and links to 19,000 sources: http://www.kidon.com/media-link

Metagrid—8,000 online magazines and newspapers: http://www.metagrid.com/

ABYZ News Links—newspapers, radio stations, Internet services, etc.: http://www.abyznewslinks.com/

Front pages for major dailies from the Newseum: http://www.newseum.org/todaysfrontpages

News Search Engines—multisource:
Yahoo news – http://news.yahoo.com/; Google – http://news.google.com/


Developments in International Search, Marydee Ojala, ONLINE

An overview of the complexities of searching across many languages, alphabets and cultures. Part of the presentation included some useful ready-reference tools:

International time: http://www.timeanddate.com/ ; http://www.worldtimeserver.com/
Currency values: http://www.oanda.com/
World Holidays: http://www.qppstudio.net/worldholidays.htm
Doing business elsewhere: (a World Bank site) http://www.doingbusiness.org/
Culture: Portal-- http://libguides.asu.edu/intletiq

Beverly Lehrer, Montgomery College

learn from the Internet Librarian conference

The Internet Librarian conference is sponsored by Information Today and happens every October. It is similar to Computers in Libraries here on the east coast in April.

This year, the theme was "Beyond 2.0: User-Focused Tools & Practices."
While being f2f with people and talking to them usually has the most value, we can still check out a lot of what happened there:

Check out the following things with the IL2008 tag:

• presentations on SlideShare
  
• the InfoToday blog
  
• Technorati (blog posts)
  
• Flickr for pictures
  
• links on Delicious
  
• FriendFeed
  
• conversations on Twitter
  

I was most upset to have missed seeing danah boyd speak, but Jenica has an excellent summary of her keynote.

Things on my radar:
Fostering Innovation
Solving the Reference Desk Problem / Reference on the Go: Txt messaging and more
The One Person Project Management Team
Solving the Interest Problem