Digital Reference Committee
Meeting Minutes
January 19, 2006

Attended: Jenny Hatleberg, Kim Ricker, Kari Schmidt, Joan Stahl, Nedelina Tchangalova

Membership for 2006:

• Welcome to Nedelina Tchangalova, a librarian at EPSL!
• The Commitee received no response from either the Humanities or Social Science Teams, after a special invitation was extended to each group in early December. Joan received a message from Travis saying he was still considering if he would continue on the Committee. Since the Dig Ref Committee has no required number of members and members do not represent any subject team, the membership for 2006 is now set.

Meeting Schedule/Roles:

• Members agreed to continue meeting on the second Thursday of each month, from 9:30am-11:00am. Kari will update the online meeting schedule with the facilitator/notetaker rotation.

Transition to Maryland AskUsNow:

• The implementation of new chat software was moved to February 25 th however; it may change, since we are receiving updates each day.
• Training on the new software is being held throughout Maryland. UM Libraries had two training sessions on January 12 th , and many UM librarians did attend these. All AUN liaisons attended an earlier training session to prepare them for troubleshooting the new software.
• Question Point software still has a number of glitches or problems which may or may not be solved by the implementation date.
• Next meeting: Create tips for addressing the limitations of the software.
• College Park AUN coverage:
  • Maryland Academic queues: 40 hours/week (9am-5pm, M-F)
  • Academic and Public queues: 10 hours/week (1pm-2pm, 4pm-5pm M-F, proposed )
  • Maryland Academic and Global Academic queues: 3 hours/week (11am-12pm MTW or MTTh, proposed )
• Online chat schedule will need to be revised and hours will need to be reallocated. Cindy has asked for assistance monitoring the online chat schedule. The committee agreed to add this task as part of the monthly rotation; Kari will add it to the meeting schedule page. Joan will ask Cindy to share more details of the process at the next meeting.

• Backup/non-reference librarians and graduate assistants: We still need to address how to include librarians whose primary duty is not reference but who want to be involved. Also need to develop basic requirements and a training/mentoring program for GAs who want to be involved in chat.
• Preparation for the new software:
  • Recommended workstation settings for QuestionPoint software: Link setup pages from the AUN and QP manuals to the DigRef committee “Resources for Chat Operators” page. Committee members can also offer to help librarians check the necessary settings. Kim will send an email to library staff closer to the date.
  • “Thank you” treats: Joan suggested giving every library staff member who does chat a goody bag with a thank you note and candy, pencils, etc. right before the implementation of the new chat model.
   

Chat web page:

• A new chat web page will be needed when we no longer offer HumanClick chat. Jenny and Joan will work together to draft a new page to replace http://www.lib.umd.edu/ENGIN/CHAT/ and update the current Ask Us! page ( http://www.lib.umd.edu/help.html ).

DigRef Spring Program: Netspeak

• Joan will invite Joe Rawson and Caroline Gillespie from UMUC to present a talk on “Netspeak” that she attended at the Virtual Reference Desk conference this fall.
• VRD Conference Proceedings & PowerPoint of the presentation: http://www.webjunction.org/do/Navigation?category=11842
• Possible dates: April 5 or May 3, 2-3pm. Kari will investigate how much it would cost to use Nyumburu. If we cannot find a larger space, we may have to require RSVP and cap attendance at 100 people (judging by the popularity of last spring's program).

Round Robin:

• Joan, Cindy, and Joe Thompson will be speaking at MDL to recruit more academic libraries as participants in AUN.

Next Meeting: February 9, 2006

• Update on the transition to new software:
  • Tips and helpful information for using the new software, to be posted on the DigRef committee web pages.
  • “Thank you” goody bags and notes
  • Discuss procedures for monitoring new chat calendar (Cindy)
  • Review draft of redesigned UM Chat web page (Jenny)
  • Discuss mentoring and training program for GAs.
  • Review the workplan/list of tasks that the committee discussed during this fall's team evaluation process (Redirection of Effort).

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