Answerboards

For those of you interested in the discussion about online reference and the use of answerboards you might be interested in this recent post on the PLV Director's blog. In it she looks at reasons why people may go online rather than to their local library.

Google Scholar and Google Books Stand Alone

Did everyone see this...

Google Books and Google Scholar are set to be left as the 'last man standing' in the mass online digitisation game as Microsoft cancels its Live Search Books & Academic programs.

This via Sarah at Librarian in Black:

Libraries and publishers who before had a choice now have to go with Google if they want mass digitization of their materials in an affordable way. Microsoft wanted to make money, and online books were expensive to produce and weren't making money. And yet, Google's projects are going strong. I hope that a non-corporate entity springs up to take up the slack and compete with Google's commercial model.

hmmm...

Britannica vs Wikipedia

Have you heard people suggesting that Wikipedia is no good on the basis that anyone can edit the articles? Have you thought it yourself? At least one contributor to the Britannica blog certainly held similar views - but, the times they are a-changin'!

It seems that Britannica is "throwing open its elegantly-bound covers to the masses. It will allow the “user community” (in the words of the encyclopedia’s blog) to contribute their own articles, which will be clearly marked and run alongside the edited reference pieces".
Josh Fischman - The Wired Campus

Here's the announcement from Britannica. Fancy that!

Thanks to Michael Stephens for the heads-up.

reference@the metcalfe on Flickr

You can have a look at the ideas and comments you made at the recent reference seminar.

What is the most bizarre question you have been asked?

What I like best about being a reference librarian is...

Ideas for the future

Reference/information work is exciting/interesting because...

I like helping people find answers to the questions because...

More from the seminar

For those who have not yet added fresh + new(er) to their rss feed, have a look at the recent post Conversation, the Commons, museum futures, and ‘architectures of participation’.

It mentions Cathy Johnston's slam the boards presentation last week highlighting the role of libraries have in 'asserting relevance'. We can't just assume that people know we are relevent we need to continue to demonstrate it, inform people about our relevance and assert it.

Reference @ The Metcalfe presentation: Answer Boards & Public Libraries (Cathy Johnston)

This is the presentation I gave at the Reference @ The Metcalfe reference seminar last Wednesday. My aim here was really to inspire other Reference Librarians to think outside their Libraries & consider the enormous potential of Answer Boards and how we can market Libraries & especially Reference Services to the many people asking questions there. It was also a big push to get more and more people involved in and actively participating in Slam the Boards!

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If you were at the Seminar I'd really like to know what you thought of my presentation, but more importantly I'd love to get feedback about your impressions and experiences with Answer Boards and especially from participation in the monthly Slam the Boards! event.
Answer Boards and Social Searching was a Week 8 activity in the Learning 2.0 program run by the State Library of NSW.

Beyond 4 Walls: Presentation Slides and Links (Martin Boyce)

Beyond 4 Walls: Imagining Reference Services in a 2.0 World was presentation given at the Reference @ the Metcalfe Seminar yesterday. In the presentation I looked at a possible future for reference services and argued the case for starting to plan for that future now.

You can view a version of this presentation below.

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If you can't read the text view the presentation on Slideshare, where you can see it in full-screen.

The links mentioned in the presentation can be found on my del.icio.us bookmarks.

If you view this slideshow or saw me present then please leave a comment and let me know what you think.