9/10/07 Virtual Reference event: Slam the Boards!

The discussion of commercial ask services (like Yahoo! Answers, Fluther, etc) has come to a head:

Slam the Boards!
Librarians invade the "Answer" sites
Monday, 9/10/07--All Day
Supporting Wiki: http://answerboards.wetpaint.com

I'd like to invite any and all interested librarians to be a little bold and have a little fun by going to online "Answer" sites, such as:

Yahoo Answers
Amazon's Askville
The WikiPedia Reference Desk
(see a list of others at http://answerboards.wetpaint.com/page/Registry+of+Answer+Boards?mail=1127)

Once there, let's answer!

I envision a day-long answer fest. Answer as many questions as you feel you can. 5...10...20...you decide. Just try to do what we do well--provide answers from authoritative resources.

...and then MARKET!

This means making it clear that this question was answered by a librarian/library professional/etc. End each answer with the mention your own library, your VR service, etc. Add the link. Mention that readers should consider their own libraries, too. Promote it to local media. Keep in mind how many people don't even realize that libraries offer reference services. Let's surprise and delight them with our quality.

I'd like hundreds of librarians to do this. Thousands? Why not?

Be clear...you'll almost certainly be helping patrons who aren't yours, but I see this as an opportunity to make the reference librarian community more visible. I'd like to see a number of us remain engaged in the answer services, on the chance that the users will have us in the backs of their minds when they have questions they don't want everyone to see. As such, I'm not expecting to see a huge "blip" in our reference/VR stats because of this. But who knows?

The point is to meet some folks where they otherwise wouldn't expect us.

What to do next?

First of all, pass this message along to anyone who might remotely be interested.

Second, this is a very informal "action," so you can just mark the date and start answering, but you may also want to visit the Wiki and put your name up as a participant: http://answerboards.wetpaint.com/page/Participating+Librarians. I'm very lonely there right now!

While you're on the wiki, share. Think of good marketing "tags," signatures, etc. that we can use.

Most of all, visit the various answer sites, see if you need to set up an account. Try answering a few questions. A couple of us have already done this and we've already got a few "Best Answers" under our belts. See the "Exemplary Answers" section of the Wiki. Post one if you've got one!

Then, on September 10, get ready to "Slam the Boards!"

Thanks to Bill Pardue of the Illinois service.

QP Users Council Discussion: Commerical Ask Communities

Vince Mariner (the Joe and I of PA) recently asked the QP Users Council (formerly the Transition Task Force, a council on which Joe and I sit) about Amazon's AskVille:

"Is it old news or is this really something new from Amazon? Anyway, I wonder if there is a way to integrate their presentation of “topics needing answers” into the QuestionPoint Shared Follow-up."

Amazon's AskVille was actually launched in December of last year- I don't think they did a complete marketing blitz when they launched but I've noticed this popping back up more recently. AskVille, like Yahoo! Answers has a "currency" (or points, with Yahoo! Answers) system depending on how active you are with the community. Apparently the "currency" will be usable on Questville.com where "users will be able to participate in contests, exchange coins with fellow users, earn additional coins, and redeem them for other prizes/rewards." Questville.com is scheduled to launch in 2007 but from what I thought, it was supposed to have launched already.

I think it would be a great idea to be able to incorporate their "stumpers" into QP for the Librarian community to answer but I think the main thing behind Yahoo! Answers (http://answers.yahoo.com), AskVille, MSN's QnA Live (http://qna.live.com) and Wondir (http://www.wondir.com) is that they build a community around the question and answers / topics. That's one thing we don't do- for better and worse. While our customers may feel alone- they can also feel better because if they have a sensitive topic, they can be completely anonymous, their questions aren't out there for the world to see, and they will be getting better answers.

Building a community around questions and answers / topics also reminds me of the those folks who are using their library blog for QandA- either officially, or unofficially by having the librarians actively reading customer comments and starting a discussion by commenting back. Just another way we are getting out there and actively going to the info need instead of waiting for the questions to come to us.

WherAmazon's AskVille was actually launched in December of last year- I don't think they did a complete marketing blitz when they launched but I've noticed this popping back up more recently. AskVille, like Yahoo! Answers has a "currency" (or points, with Yahoo! Answers) system depending on how active you are with the community. Apparently the "currency" will be usable on Questville.com where "users will be able to participate in contests, exchange coins with fellow users, earn additional coins, and redeem them for other prizes/rewards." Questville.com is scheduled to launch in 2007 but from what I thought, it was supposed to have launched already.

I think it would be a great idea to be able to incorporate their "stumpers" into QP for the Librarian community to answer but I think the main thing behind Yahoo! Answers (http://answers.yahoo.com), AskVille, MSN's QnA Live (http://qna.live.com) and Wondir (http://www.wondir.com) is that they build a community around the question and answers / topics. That's one thing we don't do- for better and worse. While our customers may feel alone- they can also feel better because if they have a sensitive topic, they can be completely anonymous, their questions aren't out there for the world to see, and they will be getting better answers.

Building a community around questions and answers / topics also reminds me of the those folks who are using their library blog for QandA- either officially, or unofficially by having the librarians actively reading customer comments and starting a discussion by commenting back. Just another way we are getting out there and actively going to the info need instead of waiting for the questions to come to us.

If the goal is to help people when they have questions (and answers, really, make ppl feel like they aren't alone because if there is an answer, someone else has tread this ground before), what's the best way of doing that? Do we build communities around knowing certain topics or just around knowing? Do we build communities at all? Do we let people stay secluded from others asking questions? Do we let ppl "evesdrop" and see what others are asking (real time question feed on Askusnow.info?)?

What do the customers want?

**Update: This discussion has morphed into a discussion of "Reference 2.0" on the QuestionPoint blog.**