Volume 5, Number 7

Volume 5, Number 5

Coordinator's Corner: "You can't opt out of the digital branch"

The quote above is from David Lee King's address at last week's OLC Convention & Expo. King's talk was on creating the customer experience and touched on both the face-to-face customer as well as the digital/virtual patron. He stressed that libraries are now both physical and digital destinations, and this is what people expect. King also stressed that libraries need to pay more attention to their "touchpoints" (i.e., where patrons come in contact with the library such as the website, catalog, front door, reference desk, etc., etc.) and to ask whether these need to be improved.

I'd like to think of KnowItNow24x7's local efforts (the local queue option, IM monitoring, reduced local texting subscription) as providing Ohio libraries the ability to address some of the aspects of their specific "digital branch."

Volume 5, Number 3

Coordinator's Corner: More Than Putting Faces to Names

KnowItNow24x7 is a collaborative effort, but it is a virtual collaborative effort. As such, often all we see of each other are simply our screen names. Although we can interact quite a bit online (SparkRef IM, Forums, and broadcasts; Provider site comments, etc.), we rarely get to interact face-to-face. So, when we get the opportunity, it's a nice change of pace. Over the past several months, I've had the pleasure of traveling around the state to conduct KIN24x7 training sessions and to visit libraries, meeting with over 75 public and academic librarians.

Volume 5, Number 1

Coordinator's Corner: Tips & Tactics from ALA

This past weekend (June 24-28), I attended the Annual Conference of the American Library Association (ALA) in New Orleans. The only word to describe the heat and humidity in the city was oppressive. I feel that I now know what it's like to push through solid air. As the current RSS Co-chair of the Virtual Reference Services Committee, much of my time was taken up with chairing and attending meetings (inside in the A/C); however, this year also gave me the opportunity to be involved first-hand in bringing a presentation at ALA Annual to fruition: Behind the Text: Pulling Back the Curtain on Virtual Reference. Seeing our professional organization from the inside-out continues to be very interesting. I encourage anyone involved with KnowItNow24x7 that had the opportunity to attend ALA to share their experiences and finds by posting comments to this newsletter.

I did get to attend several interesting sessions and to discover some new resources that I'd like to share. Consider this a two-for-one combo of Coordinator's Corner and Tips & Tactics. Enjoy!

Volume 4, Number 11

Coordinator's Corner: The Long Tail of KIN24x7

I recently read a book that I had been meaning to read literally for years: The Long Tail by Chris Anderson. Very interesting stuff. In addition to the 2006 first edition, there has also been a revised edition (2008) and a graphic novel version (2011). In a nutshell, Anderson shows how aggregated small amounts can make a huge impact in business, marketing, and other arenas. The long tail refers to a graph such as the one below, with the "head" at the left and the "long tail" stretching off to the right: