Hello! Now that I’ve introduced myself, I’d like to talk about what I’ll be working on during my practicum that will help give me a better understanding of not only virtual reference issues and trends, but also reference service, support, and administration in general. First, I will staff the service and answer e-mail questions at various times, which will help me gain experience in providing reference services. Second, I will help support the statewide network of librarians that staff the KnowItNow24x7 service. To do this, I will write these weekly blog posts, create pathfinders, and serve as an honorary QuACK member by reviewing transcripts and evaluating them. Lastly, I will analyze collected data on the quality of virtual reference transactions and examine the current questions asked and make recommendations on my review.

I have already started with a few of these goals and answered my first e-mail this week. I was excited to be able to use a screencasting tool called Jing that I had heard about at the Academic Library Association of Ohio (ALAO) Annual Conference and that Don featured in one of his blog posts. The e-mail asked if EBSCOhost databases could be accessed from a particular public library. As I was going through the steps and writing them out, I kept thinking that this was a lot of text to explain how to access a database and I wondered if I might lose the patron before they even gave it a try. It occurred to me that it would be the perfect opportunity to give screencasting a try. All I had to do was download the software, record myself doing the steps, and send a link to the patron to watch. Easy, right?

Well, yes, for the most part. If you’ve not used the free version of Jing before, I hope that after you read my account that you’ll give it a try and that you will pick up a few tips to help make your experience even easier than mine.

First, I downloaded the software and installed it. Next, I signed up for the e-mail news list like they suggested and watched two tutorials they recommended. One was on how to capture an image and the other was on how to capture a video. I felt pretty confident after viewing these and went on to record myself going through the steps to access the EBSCOhost database from the public library website. At some point I was given an option to test my microphone, which was very helpful since I determined that my sound quality on my laptop was not very good and I decided not to use audio with my recording, which I did by muting.

What I learned:
1. Clear your history before each recording to get the step to enter your zip code to access the databases.
2. Make the area to record the maximum area. Even though I made the area to record big enough for the public library’s website, I did not make it big enough to capture the entire EBSCOhost site so I would recommend making the area you capture the maximum that you can.
3. Familiarize yourself with the controls before recording. I hit the “x” button when I meant to stop the recording and cancelled it instead. You need to actually hit the button all the way to the left that looks like a box stop button.

Once I successfully completed the tutorial, I was so excited! Jing automatically copies the URL to access the recording so I simply had to paste it into the e-mail reply I was already drafting. You can view the screencast yourself by going to http://screencast.com/t/xWjAVvfpxy

Now that I know how to use Jing, I can definitely see using this in the future as part of e-mail and chat reference transactions. I could have easily recorded the video and sent the link before I finished typing out the instructions.

Have any of you used Jing or other screencasting tools in your reference service? Please add a comment and let me know of any helpful tips you have!

In my next post, I’ll talk about participating in a conference call of the QuACK Committee (and possibly gush a little bit about them). You’ve been warned :)

All the best,
Ashlee