There has been some concerns raised about the upcoming subject queue consolidation to the effect that some think that subject expertise will no longer be valued. This could not be further from the truth. In fact, subject expertise in some ways will be even more valuable, and the added value will come from sharing that knowledge with colleagues. Subject expertise, it should be noted, is not only knowledge of traditional library subjects like history, social sciences, business, and readers advisory, but also expertise in subjects like gaming, anime, coin collecting, technology, and myriad other kinds of specialized know-how held by KIN24x7 librarians across Ohio.

KnowItNow24x7 is built on a foundation of shared responsibility and collaboration among the participating libraries and librarians and will remain a vital part of the service. SparkRef has always provided mechanisms for collaborating with colleagues; however, these will become even more useful with the upcoming subject queue consolidation.

All librarians who staff KnowItNow24x7 (no matter how infrequently) should have an account for the Provider site (provider.knowitnow.org). To sign-up for an account, simply click on "Create new account" on the Provider site itself. Provider site accounts are completely separate from your SparkRef usernames and passwords and can be the same or different depending on your personal preferences when you sign up.

Several librarians have asked how many questions they can expect come June 1 with the consolidated queue. There is no way to state a specific number; however, a good estimate can be arrived at by looking at the Sessions by Hour statistics available at provider.knowitnow.org/node/480. Keep in mind that instead of the current 2-3 librarians (at most) staffing a subject queue, KIN24x7 will have 10-15 librarians staffing the same queue simultaneously starting in June. Therefore, even if patrons would initiate 90 sessions for a particular hour, that would only be 6-9 questions for any one librarian during that timeframe. This "6-9 questions" also does not take into account those sessions that would be handled by the libraries staffing a local queue. As can be seen from the statistics, most hours are well below 90 sessions.

A question concerning the subject queue consolidation has come up concerning where librarians can find information about subjects with which they are not familiar. Specifically, one librarian was curious if the sites featured in the Online Resources columns in the monthly newsletters were available elsewhere on the Provider site because "I have a feeling I might be looking for those after the consolidation happens."

Due to a number of factors, KnowItNow24x7's subject queues will be collapsed into one as of June 1, 2010. This will not require any changes to software or logins on the part of individual libraries. In fact, the many libraries already staffing the General Questions queue will see no change in the types of questions to which they respond. To facilitate this change, we will be stressing the available collaborative tools on SparkRef (e.g., IM, broadcasting, conferencing) as well as initiating projects in which Ohio's librarians can pool their expertise and share their experience with others.

Although this may appear dramatic, this model has successfully been used for virtual reference service in many other states and comes with a number of positive changes for both patrons and librarians:

We are looking at redoing the statistics page on the provider site http://provider.knowitnow.org/node/20 and are interested in your feedback.  Specifically:

BBC News has created an interactive "map" of the Top 100 Most-Visited sites on the Internet for January 2010. The data, according to the BBC, was collected by the Nielsen company and covers "the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, Brazil, US and Australia.

The KnowItNow24x7 Provider site will be unavailable March 10, 2010 from 7:30 am to approximately 9:00 am while we do some system upgrades.

The QuACK has posted the Transcripts and Email of the Month to their blog. The entries can be found at provider.knowitnow.org/node/551 (transcripts) and provider.knowitnow.org/node/554 (email). This month's honorees are Librarian46 of the Public Library of Youngstown & Mahoning County, MaryC of Shawnee State University, and KSU Intern Kris Steel. Congratulations!