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Bookings for these workshops were made when you registered for
the conference.
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Day 1 : 1.45pm-4.45pm
Afternoon refreshments: 3.25pm-4.00pm
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Day 2 : 2.00-5.00pm
Afternoon refreshments: 3.00pm-3.30pm |
Workshop 1:
Evaluation and measurement |
Workshop 1:
Skills for reference staff |
Workshop 2:
Skills for reference staff |
Workshop 2:
Measuring client needs |
Workshop 3:
Measuring client needs |
Workshop 3:
Virtual reference |
Day
1 : Friday
12 October 2001
Workshop 1 : Friday
- Evaluation and measurement
-
- Applying the ASK model of reference
service evaluation to virtual reference services.
The CAVAL Reference Interest Group Working Party on Performance
Measures for Reference Services derived a model of reference
service evaluation over a 5 year study. Twelve key performance
indicators were identified clustering into three broad dimensions
of service: Attributes, Support and Knowledge. During a national
workshop in Canberra in October 2000 with representatives comprising
reference service managers and practitioners from all library
sectors, three of the twelve performance indicators were identified
as priority indicators:
- Interpersonal skills: Ability to listen, to be patient,
empathetic, understanding, caring and flexible in relation
to the specific information and learning needs of users.
- Integration into the organisation's program: Degree of alignment
of the objectives, outcomes and educational aims of the reference
service within the organisation's programs.
- Knowledge of resources: Conceptual understanding of scholarly
publishing and the storage of information.
- Knowledge of information strategies: Specific knowledge
of the home library's collections.
- Knowledge of resources in specialised subject areas, and
the ability to locate resources or experts in any discipline.
The three indicators were assessed as important for evaluating
reference services in all types of libraries: academic, public,
special.
Rapid changes in information and communications technology
and new ways of delivering reference services using information
technologies necessitate a dynamic reassessment and redefinition
of the measures used to evaluate reference services. It is posited
that the twelve performance indicators are applicable whatever
the mode of reference service delivery (face to face, by phone,
electronic, real time). However, the method of measuring the
indicators may change.
The RAISS 2001 workshop will briefly review the ASK model before
focussing on the three indicators which have been designated
as cross-sectoral priorities. Measures relevant to these priority
indicators will be explored, with a special focus on the virtual
reference environment.
The workshop program will include group work by participants.
The workshop will be structured to have the following outcomes
for participants:
- Enhance participants' understanding of the ASK model indicators
in the context of reference and information services performance
measurement.
- Explore possible performance measures for the priority indicators
Interpersonal skills, Integration into the Organisation's
Program, and Knowledge of Resources, based on experience with
existing measures and in the context of reference services
in the electronic/virtual environment.
Presenters: Rosemary Cotter, David Cunnington, Eva Fisch, Barbara
Paton
- Workshop 2 : Friday
- Skills for reference staff
Chair: Tony Arthur
Presenters:
- Wendi Greenaway
- Lisa Peddy
- Rachel Salmond
Wendi Greenaway- The question of "what are the skills required to be a
reference librarian in today's library?" as it applies in
a post secondary education environment is the focus of this paper.
This is based on my experiences working and managing a TAFE Learning
Resource Centre.
Firstly the question must be asked what is a reference librarian?
We certainly do not use this title any more and when I explain
what we are expected to do when we are rostered on the floor,
the title "reference librarian" is totally inaccurate.
Reference work is all about customer service. It is our users
that are the focus of all the work we do.
A reference librarian in a TAFE Library must be:
- Multi skilled and flexible
- Computer hardware and software expert
- Understand the workings of the Internet, to the point of
assisting users gain maxim benefit from the plethora of information.
- Be the copyright watchdog.
- Have an understanding of the curriculum and competency standards.
- Understand training packages and how they work.
- Understand the content of on-line learning units to the
point of being able to assist students with their learning.
- Be an ESL learning support tutor to International students.
- Manage and participate in all information literacy classes
including orientations, Internet, e-mail, Powerpoint and database
searching skills.
- Preparing and producing web-page listings and ensuring they
are current and relevant at all times.
- Keep abreast of emerging trends
This is by no means an exhaustive list but all this of course
on top of the core reference work that underpins all
library work.
It is important that the traditional roles within libraries
are re-examined and adjusted to reflect the invaluable work
we do in life long learning principles.
- Lisa Peddy
- The presentation will be an outline of the training undertaken
and skills developed by Lisa Peddey since joining the State Library
of Victoria.
Lisa joined the library as a new graduate in 2000. The presentation
will emphasise her training and skill development, focusing
on her role in Express Information, the fee-for-service research
service at the State Library. Reference will be made to her
training in the core business and statistics reference and research
tools. Training pertinent to both on-line and paper reference
tools and activities pertinent for customer service will also
be addressed. Lisa also undertook training and development activities
for general library reference desk responsibilities. These will
also be described.
Finally, an attempt will be made to compare this one-person
training and development case study to a broader library-training
framework. An analysis of how Lisa's practical experience compares
with key elements of an Australian public library competency-based
model will be offered.
- Workshop 3 : Friday
- Measuring client's needs
Chair: Ros Hurworth
Presenters:
Elizabeth Hartmann- Meeting students halfway: marrying
what we think students need to know and ways they like to find
out.
There has been a change in emphasis in education, in recent times,
away from teachers imparting expert knowledge to an emphasis on
student centred learning and the development of life long learners
- graduates who are independent learners and critical thinkers.
This shift in paradigm has placed a greater emphasis on students
becoming information literate, leading to the proliferation of
information literacy skills classes on various educational campuses.
Too often the attempts of well meaning reference staff to engage
students in this cornerstone of learning are met with (passive)
resistance. Students fail to see this adjunct to their learning
as necessary, with the consequence that many first year students
fail to successfully make the transition to university education.
Studies undertaken at the University of Ballarat have highlighted
problems students experience in making the transition to university
culture and have also investigated the best mechanisms/strategies
for communicating and informing 1st year students about support
programs available to them. Concurrent studies undertaken by
the reference (Information Literacy and Research Services) IL&RS
team revealed that often the biggest influence on student's
decisions to participate in support (Information Literacy) programs
was the recommendation of peers. The mentoring program offered
a platform for the sharing of information and the cross fertilisation
of ideas amongst participating students.
The peer mentoring program is a collaborative project involving
several branches within the University; the School of Engineering,
the School of Business (law), Scholarship and Educational Development
Services (SEDS),
Student Services Branch and IL&RS. It has run for one year
and will continue in 2001. This paper will deal with the involvement
of IL&RS in planning, development and delivery and evaluation.
- Jenny Addie and Alex Leknius
- I can't get no satisfaction: turning
on to client needs.
The challenge for Deakin University Library is to meet customer
needs within print and electronic paradigms. As part of the strategic
planning process, a hierarchy of customer values was ascertained
and tested against current performance. Strategies to meet customer
needs and to evaluate performance were promulgated within the
Library. Project teams were established to ensure that developments
advanced the organisation in relation to client satisfaction.
This workshop will outline the Deakin University Library experience,
underscore successes and highlight future challenges.
Heather Phillips- This presentation will outline examples of market research targeting
users and non users conducted by Victorian public libraries at
the local and statewide level; discuss the why, how and what ie
what do we learn and what can we do about it! The 2001 AustraliaSCAN
Report prepared by Quantum Market Research for 'librariesvictoria'
will be introduced during this session. This year is the first
time that questions relating to library use have been included
in this annual cultural monitor of all states and territories
of Australia.
Day
2 : Saturday
13 October 2001
- Workshop 1 : Saturday
- Skills for reference staff
Chair: Teresa Wight
Presenters:
- Cindy Tschernitz
- Business acumen vs reference skills. What makes a good Information
Broker?
- Moyra McAllister
- Skills for reference staff in a corporate environment
In the current era of Knowledge Management, it is essential for
Reference Staff to move from a philosophy of "Service"
to one of "Partnership".
- Partnership with clients
- Partnership with other service groups, such as IT, Marketing
- Partnership with other libraries and organisations to optimise
resource sharing
This session will look at the skills sought when employing staff
for Blake Dawson Waldron Library service. Since almost all staff
will be involved in the Reference function at some point in their
work, these are key competencies for all positions. Successful
candidates demonstrate that they have the ability to become:
- familiar quickly with the core business of the organisation
- create an environment of trust and confidence
- communicate effectively
- work well in a multi-disciplinary team
- network effectively
- prioritise
- be an ambassador for, and market the library
- train clients in the use of print and electronic resources
These skills are in addition to
- a strong background in and understanding of the traditional
library skills of acquisition, organisation and dissemination
of information
- superior internet searching skills and familiarity with
related technologies such as web publishing
Stephanie Foott- So you want to a cybrarian...
For the last 30 years or so technology has been making information
more accessible. Paradoxically this same technology has also been
the cause of some of the greatest barriers to information access.
From microfiche readers, through video players to computers the
technology itself has thrown up an increasing number of hurdles
that the user must negotiate before they can make use of the content.
Because nothing could be extracted without first mastering the
"equipment" and because time is always limited, our
education programs lost their way for a while and tended to concentrate
on the mechanics of the interface rather than content.
Until fairly recently, the technologies differed largely only
in their level of complexity. The first big shift occurred with
the availability of electronic information. Electronic searching
allowed unconnected ideas to be combined to retrieve better
targeted information. Librarians survived this development with
relative ease because their training gave them a good mental
map of way information is organized. We were able to adapt because
we had a clear understanding of the structure of databases and
so could move easily from interface to interface. However we
left many of our users behind, still struggling with which button
to press.
A more fundamental change has been the introduction of the
internet. Before it's wide availability, we could be sure that
the resources our users were accessing were ones we knew and
had probably selected for them. More importantly, we were always
close at hand to guide and help them. Users now access a vast
library of resources independently and usually removed from
access to a professional librarian. In consequence, we as librarians,
need to reassess the way we deliver our services.
In her talk Stephanie will explore just what qualities are
needed to meet these new challenges:
- How does the cybrarian help their clients to become fluent
with the technology?
- How does the cybrarian refocuss themselves and their clients
on content?
- How does the cybrarian make their clients aware of quality
resources from the vast store now available to them?
- How does the cybrarian help their clients to assess the
authority and appropriateness of these resources?
- And how do they do this all this with clients who may never
be seen face to face?
- Workshop 2 : Saturday
- Measuring client's needs
Chair: Ros Hurworth
Presenters:
- Carmen Riordan
- Taking Notice of Feedback
Feedback about the Library comes in a variety of forms including
surveys (university-wide and Library), verbal and written (email,
suggestion box comments and formal letters). One-to-one contact
provides the opportunity to gather informal feedback (e.g. Librarians
with academic/teaching staff and students, meetings, and information
desk queries). While the majority of feedback received consists
of suggestions for improvement, much positive and complimentary
feedback is also received. It is worth developing a system for
recording, measuring and reporting unsolicited feedback so that
where themes emerge they can be addressed or applauded.
Surveys can provide two types of information - qualitative
and quantitative. While quantitative information enables measurement
of perceptions from year to year, it is the qualitative information
that is particularly interesting as this indicates where people
feel strongly enough to make their own comment rather than just
responding to questions.
Where there is a culture of valuing feedback it can be used
to create change and improve services and resources. At RMIT
each year a list of Top 10 student concerns is compiled as a
result of a university-wide (i.e. broad) student survey, as
well as from other feedback. At budget time the university looks
at how the 'issues' can be addressed through funding.
As marketing is a two-way communication process it's important
to communicate back to people improvements that result from
feedback. An increasing amount of feedback is received as confidence
is increased that feedback will be listened to - this is partly
a result of communicating back to students and staff changes
as a result of feedback (of which there have been a number of
significant ones at RMIT University Library over the last two
years). If you value feedback - and let your clientele know
that you value it - they're more likely to let you know what
they want.
Elizabeth Hartmann- Meeting students halfway: marrying
what we think students need to know and ways they like to find
out.
There has been a change in emphasis in education, in recent
times, away from teachers imparting expert knowledge to an emphasis
on student centred learning and the development of life long
learners - graduates who are independent learners and critical
thinkers. This shift in paradigm has placed a greater emphasis
on students becoming information literate, leading to the proliferation
of information literacy skills classes on various educational
campuses. Too often the attempts of well meaning reference staff
to engage students in this cornerstone of learning are met with
(passive) resistance. Students fail to see this adjunct to their
learning as necessary, with the consequence that many first
year students fail to successfully make the transition to university
education.
Studies undertaken at the University of Ballarat have highlighted
problems students experience in making the transition to university
culture and have also investigated the best mechanisms/strategies
for communicating and informing 1st year students about support
programs available to them. Concurrent studies undertaken by
the reference (Information Literacy and Research Services) IL&RS
team revealed that often the biggest influence on student's
decisions to participate in support (Information Literacy) programs
was the recommendation of peers. The mentoring program offered
a platform for the sharing of information and the cross fertilisation
of ideas amongst participating students.
The peer mentoring program is a collaborative project involving
several branches within the University; the School of Engineering,
the School of Business (law), Scholarship and Educational Development
Services (SEDS),
Student Services Branch and IL&RS. It has run for one year
and will continue in 2001. This paper will deal with the involvement
of IL&RS in planning, development and delivery and evaluation.
- Kylie Murphy
- Using research to make user-focused service improvements.
As the Marketing Officer at the SLV Kylie has been involved in
the development and implementation of a research program to measure
user satisfaction with the Library's services and products. She
will focus on how the methodology has been refined over the last
3 years in order to deliver the information managers need to improve
services for users.
- Workshop 3 : Saturday
- Virtual reference
Chair: Leneve Jamieson
Presenters:
- Anne Draper and Karen Borchardt
- Cybrarians providing new directions
in a digital environment: virtual reference services at the University
of Queensland.
The role of a physical reference desk as the only service available
to assist individual customers to locate information is no longer
appropriate in a digital environment. An environment characterised
by 24 hour access to networked information, a student population
with diverse information needs and learning styles and an increased
emphasis on web-based teaching and learning initiatives.
The University of Queensland Library has implemented a number
of initiatives on the path to developing a virtual reference
service which would be available 24 hours a day to support the
teaching, learning and research activities of staff and students
.
Ask a Cybrarian is the University of Queensland Library's electronic
reference service providing students and staff with the option
of asking reference questions online using a web based form.
The development of the Ask a Cybrarian service continues the
Library's philosophy of providing an integrated web interface
to all the Library's collections and services. In addition to
Ask a Cybrarian the Library has developed a virtual reference
collection . This collection is constantly updated and accessible
from our Cybrary webpage.
This paper will looks at the issues involved with virtual reference
services. It will address the technical and operational issues
involved with establishing an online reference service and outline
our experiences with running the service. Future directions
for the service will be discussed including a Universitas 21
proposal for a 24 hour reference service to be achieved by collaborating
with partner institutions.
- Perri-Lee Sandell and Philippa Hair
- Ask a librarian - the Macquarie experience.
This paper describes the development and trial of a project at
Macquarie University Library to provide remote access users with
a real time, virtual reference service, using videoconferencing
software. The service is called Ask-a-Librarian.
Increasingly courses are being delivered in online mode and
are accessible at times convenient to the student. It seems
appropriate therefore to offer students a reference service
which similarly doesn't not require their physical presence
on the campus.
The software NetMeeting was selected as the most suitable because
of the opportunity it offers to share screens, because it is
free, easy to download and not difficult to use.
- Marie-Therese Van Dyk and Averil Dent
- Reaching out: Monash University Library's
suite of virtual information desks.
This paper charts Monash University Library's evolutionary suite
of virtual information desks accessible to staff and students
located in Australia and overseas. Revealed within the paper are
lessons learned during the trial of e-Query, the first
of the suite. e-Query challenged a number of assumptions
such as staffing; it gave another dimension to the concept of
the reference interview, and client's use of the service. It reinforced
the perception that a virtual information desk hub, supported
by cascading queries to university staff within and moves the
library to a real-time virtual information desk, focusing on more
complex reference queries related to subject searching.
The suite's third component, a linked telephone inquiry services
aims to diminish the digital divide which can be experienced
by the university's diversity of on and off campus students.
The paper is of interest to those involved in extending the
boundaries of reference services across time zones and across
different technologies. The paper aims to generate debate on
differing approaches that may be used.
Last updated 4 October 2001
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