Minutes

Digital Reference Committee

January 24, 2003

Present: Eileen Abels, Julie Arnold, Ann Hudak, Travis Johnson

Topic: Committee Membership
Outcome: Committee discussed membership, and leadership of the team. It was decided that membership would be capped at 9. Also, when new members are recruited they will be asked to serve at least one year (January to January), and membership will be addressed yearly. It is desired that the following be represented on the committee: Virtual Reference Coordinator, IRS-Team Leader, at least 1 person from special collections, and at least 1 person from each subject team. Other members will be library-wide interested parties. Julie Arnold agreed to be relieved as Chair of the committee, but will remain on the committee, due to coordination of Virtual Reference activities. Travis Johnson was nominated to be new chair, and accepted, unless there is opposition from any absent members of the committee. The job of the Chair is to call for and facilitate meetings, and to be sure that the committee is working to fulfill the charge. Katalin Ebrani and Alesia McManus have resigned from the committee.

Topic: AskUsNow!
Outcome: Julie updated the committee on AskUsNow! activities. The service will officially open on February 18, at which time we are expected to fill our 15 hours. However, the "grand opening" with marketing will happen on March 17. There are currently 9 committed volunteers from the UM Libraries, and these volunteers are going through training. More information can be obtained from the following websites:

http://www.askusnow.org/state
http://www.askusnow.org/state/members

Topic: Best Practices
Outcome: Committee decided to bring back to the February meeting as there were 4 members of the committee absent. A "policies" website for virtual reference operators was suggested, which will be created by Julie. This website will contain guidelines, cheat sheet, policies, best practices, and a link to AskUsNow! Eileen suggested that Chat operators meet once a semester to evaluate transcripts and discuss issues/problems. Julie will coordinate.

Respectfully submitted,

-Julie Arnold