VR

2002-06-25T14:15:00.000-07:00

Bob Sessions here. Yet another slow day watching the interface. I am learning about the LSSI interface being tested by our local Public Library. They are not getting much action either. Blessings on the head of internet music providers who supply all the salsa necessary to keep me awake during the quiet times. Back to building bibliographies of faculty--searching for more teaching opportunities in the fall semester. BI classes are good places to demonstrate the use of connecting with a librarian live on the web pages. I want to learn how to sandwich in a demo of the button whenever I do a demo of our Library Web Site.
The sun is still shining in Madison, and the temperature is like St. Louis, MO. Way too hot.
rs

2002-06-18T08:53:00.000-07:00

Bob Sessions here. This is a slow period in watching our VR interface because the traffic is so low. I don't mind monitoring it while I'm in my office, but other job duties take me from there from time to time. The hard part is to member to switch the interface to "unavailable" while I step out...The summer session has just started here, so a slight increase in traffic is possible, but nothing yet.

Our team is debating how to identify ourselves when we operate the VR console: we have tried library names. My library is Steenbock, and I log in as Steenbock2. But they are considering "Librarian13" or other names in a series. Pretty anonymous. Our system allows office hours if we have a particular name associated with a particular page. For example, when I teach a class, say Food Science 540, I can make a web page associated with that class. If the Convey button is registered for the page, and my name, I can announce office hours. Any user of the Food Science 540 page can reach me. We have yet to implement this, but it seems useful.

Our system is the Convey system, using a persistent button that appears in the browser (rather than on the web page). The questions I handled so far with this system have worked very well.

out for today, Bob Sessions, University of Wisconsin - Madison,where the sun is shining and the weather is wonderful. For now.

2002-06-11T18:14:00.000-07:00

Hi! My name is Paul Mills, and I am the IT Coordinator for the Heritage Trail Library System (HTLS) in Illinois. HTLS is one of 12 regional library systems in our great state that provide support, services, and consulting for all types (public, school, academic, special, etc.) of libraries.

HTLS is hoping to start a virtual reference service that will include librarians from at least two types of libraries. We plan to use Rakim, the software that Rob Casson of Miami University of Ohio has developed and graciously shared.

We are in a holding pattern right now. We do have several librarians interested in participating, but we are looking for someone to step forward and take us to the next step and actually get the service running. Our member librarians are pretty busy, and it's hard for them to step up and take on the responsibility of getting this service to run. HTLS does plan to hire someone to fill a new consultant position soon, though, and one of the responsibilities of that position will be to faciliate virtual reference.

I am really excited to see this service begin, though I must admit I'm a bit distracted right now as we have just started a migration process to a new ILS. :-)

2002-06-11T16:05:00.000-07:00

Since there has been quite a discussion on livereference about whether or not I should remain
virtual/anonymous, I am happy to announce that we have some very visible, and great contributors
to this blog: Bernie Sloan from the University of Illinois; Robert Sessions from Wisconsin; and
Paul Mills from Heritage Trail Library System. Since this is a community blog, its personality
will take shape from those who post to it. If anyone else would like to contribute, please email
me at vrlibrarian@hotmail.com. Thanks to those who agreed to participate! With these top notch
librarians, this can be a top notch blog!

2002-06-08T15:58:00.000-07:00

Welcome to VR, a new blog on virtual reference! The success of many blogs has been because of
the personality and witty commentary of the author. VR is an experiment in bloggery; and, since
it is on virtual reference, I plan to remain virtual. I am a librarian and I do spend approximately
10 hours per week, more or less working virtual reference. If I told you any more than that, it
might ruin my virtual, and anonymous identity. Although
If you wish to be a contributor, send me an email at VRLibrarian@hotmail.com
and I will add your name and email so that you can contribute. The purpose of this blog is to share
news, ideas, trends, and practices in virtual reference in libraries of all types.

To celebrate my first post, and the initiation of VR, I would like to publicize the updating of
the wonderful Bernie Sloan's Digital
Reference Services Bibliography. This wonderful work and resource on digital reference
was just updated June 3. Anyone new to digital reference would be well-served to check this
out!