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Board Meeting Notes Ask Wisconsin Librarians Placeware Web Conference January 8, 2004 1-2:30 p.m. Participants: Mark Beatty, WiLS; Jan Dibble, Oshkosh PL; John Hubbard, UW-Milwaukee; John Stoneberg, L.E. Phillips PL; Anne Kasuboski, UW-Green Bay; Mimi King, UW-Eau Claire; Kim LaPlante, Northeast Wisconsin Technical College; Mary Struckmeyer, Reference & Loan Library. By-Laws John Stoneberg presented a draft of the by-laws, saying that he tried to keep them as simple as possible.  The main discussion focused on the list of holidays that shared chat will not be staffed.  Since different types of libraries are closed for different holidays, it was decided to change the wording from “all federal holidays” to “selected federal holidays” and to list the following days when the chat service will be closed: New Year’s Day; the Birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr.; Memorial Day; Independence Day; Labor Day; Thanksgiving Day; and Christmas Day.  The service will also be closed on Christmas Eve Day and New Year’s Eve Day.   Members are encouraged to post this information on their local websites. The by-laws were unanimously approved as amended.  They will be e-mailed to members and amended if necessary, based on comments by the general membership. Replacement for Mimi King Mimi was elected as a member at large, but since UW-Eau Claire has dropped its subscription, she will be replaced on the board. John Stoneberg, as chair of the nominations committee, will solicit nominations and self-nominations to be submitted by Monday, January 26.  The elected candidate will complete a two-year term ending June 30, 2005. The board expressed their appreciation to Mimi for her willingness to serve and time spent on the board. Hours/Scheduling Issues The first discussion item was double coverage.  It was agreed that not all time slots need to be covered by staff from two libraries.  Single coverage during non-busy times will be tried during the spring semester.  Double coverage does not appear to be necessary over the summer. Mark brought up extending hours of coverage and asked what the ideal number of hours for staffing by regular participants would be.  Several board members said that their staff could not handle any more hours right now. Mark suggested that library school students could be hired to handle the “undesirable hours.”  He asked about scheduling coverage for Saturdays.   Opinions offered and questions raised:   •    Extend evening coverage for academic students—those libraries empty out between 10:30 and 11 p.m.   •    Morning coverage is not vital. •    Is one of our goals to provide service during hours when buildings are closed? •    Do academic students need later service on Sundays? •    For technical colleges, covering distance rather than hours may be more important.  Chat with technical college students is done mostly during the day. •    We need to market the service first and then gauge the need. Mark summarized the discussion by proposing that we maintain 66 hours of chat service this semester and focus on marketing.  There was unanimous agreement. Mark will put more marketing materials on the AskWisconsin Librarians website. Kim LaPlante, publicity committee chair, will find guidelines for branding websites and distribute them. Equitable Distribution of Hours The biggest issue right now seems to be “good hours” versus “bad hours.”  Mark suggested that information on how hours are assigned should be added to the by-laws so that new members will know what is expected of them. Rotating good and bad hours was suggested.   The second issue involves assigning hours on the basis of number of staff available.  For example, should multi-library groups such as WisPALS be asked to contribute more hours because the total number of staff is larger?   Or should the formula be based on amount of local usage?  Should a policy be developed and codified in the by-laws?  The board agreed that having enough staffing is not currently an issue, but could be in the future. The board did not reach a conclusion on either issue. It was agreed that John Hubbard and Anne Kasuboski would do a workshop for public library staff on serving academic students.  The Best Practices Committee will plan other workshops. Cooperative Scheduling The board agreed that it would be worth trying this method, which would allow each institution to set the hours that it will cover chat and to get all questions originating from their local website.  This would be similar to the way e-mail works now.  Each member would have to fill out a profile indicating hours that chat would be staffed.  Mark would then review the profiles to be sure that all times agreed on were covered.  Mark was very confident that there would not be glitches in the scheduling technology. The board voted unanimously to support use of the scheduling software on an experimental basis.  Mark will work with the administrators at each library to set up a Placeware session to review procedures and implement the software.  This may take several months. Committee Update •    Elections -- John Stoneberg declined the offer to create a subcommittee to help with the election of a replacement for Mimi King.    •    Knowledge Base -- The committee, chaired by Mary Struckmeyer and consisting of Loretta Harmatuck, John Stoneberg, Regina Pauly, and Dave Dettman, needs to establish guidelines for what will be included in the Wisconsin KB.  Mary S. will work with the committee to draft a document based on Library of Congress guidelines for the global KB.  Mark will then schedule training. •    Marketing – Chair Kim LaPlante will be recruiting members.  She inquired about a budget.  Mark said that approximately $1,000 may be available, although no money has been specifically ear-marked for PR.  It was pointed out that marketing to public library customers would be different from marketing to academic users and Kim was encouraged to recruit committee members from public libraries. Two potential new consortium members are public libraries—Marathon County Library in Wausau and Waukesha Public Library.  UW-Milwaukee and South Central Library System have both created virtual reference PR materials.  Mary S. suggested collecting samples or getting advice from them.   •    Assessment -- Jan Dibble is chairing this committee; other members are Sue Riehl and Judy Lyons. The assessment committee will investigate ways that vendors might allow reference librarians from other libraries to search local databases while helping patrons via chat.  Mimi King is interested in this issue and volunteered to work with Jan Dibble, even though Mimi’s library has left the consortium. Mark said that UW-Madison has approached vendors about licensing language that would accommodate virtual reference usage. •    Best Practices – Co-chaired by Anne Kasuboski and John Hubbard.  Members from all types of libraries will be included.  The board generated the following list of issues as examples of items for the committee to address:  Protocols for shift changes and referring questions, handling patrons who hang up or are abusive; how long or “deep” to search patron’s local library website before referring them to someone at the local library; how long to work on a question before referring it to a specialist.  There was some debate about whether the librarian should make it clear that they are not at the patron’s local library or whether this would discourage patrons from asking questions Training  Jan Dibble suggested that the academic librarians do a workshop for the public librarians to highlight common academic website features.  Other areas to be covered in workshops are knowledge base, profiling, and best practices. New staff members could use a basic training session and others might like a refresher session that would include tips and tricks.  A user group session with questions from participants could be incorporated in a best practices workshop. Mark and the board agreed that Placeware “train the trainer” sessions have worked well. The meeting was adjourned at 2:30 p.m. Submitted by Mary Struckmeyer Secretary