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Slam the Boards!
Public Library "Slam the Boards" Our local library answers to our questions online through their Reference Desk during library’s working hours
Last updated:
Yesterday, 9:33 AM EDT by Anonymous
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Getting Recognition From the Boards
A couple of answer boards have taken notice of "Slam the Boards" and have taken steps to recognize librarians. Here's what you need to do
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Last updated:
Feb 13 2008, 3:14 PM EST by
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WikiAnswers wants to work with Slam the Boards
Hello, all! I hope some of you got to do a little board slamming yesterday.
I spoke with Jay Bailey, the Director of Marketing & Community Development for WikiAnswers last Wednesday. He brought up some very interesting suggestions in regard to working with Slam the Boards librarians.
1) Creating a "badge" that could be applied to Slam librarians when they create their accounts. This would mean that you should put "Slam the Boards" in the "Where Are You From" field of your WikiAnswers profile.
2) Serious PR, e.g, mentioning/welcoming us in a monthly newsletter that goes out to the full WikiAnswers community (he claims 300K members). They'd also mention the participation of trained librarians in PR materials to emphasize the value and "maturity" of their service. They also have a blog at http://www.nostupidanswers.com in which we could be mentioned.
3) They're thinking of having an AnswerThon in early March (in which top answerers--subject to their rules--could get some serious prizes. One thought is a $500 amazon certificate...but it's not finalized yet). If a Slam librarian is among the winners, that affiliation would be mentioned.
For their part, they'd like to see some significant numbers from librarians before creating the badge. I understand this, but I promised no specific numbers. The main thing is to get a bunch of us participating and see what we can do over the course of a week/month/etc. I emphasized that we're all doing this on top of our regular library duties and that WikiAnswers has to share time with Yahoo and everyone else, so it's going to come from lots of librarians contributing a little bit each. That said, they're still happy to play up that librarians are contributing, even if we're not doing it at a "badge" level just yet.
So, who wants to dive in and create a profile?
--Bill Pardue
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Posted:
Feb 11 2008, 3:52 PM EST by
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slam the boards
I already do this on Yahoo Answer... I provide resources and then always suggest the person go their local public library where a librarian will happily provide the information the person is looking for. I almost always get a best answer for it too. woo hoo.. 10 extra points. People Like to get resources more than they like to hear ours expounding on opinions.
Great idea. I am SO on board.
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Posted:
Aug 16 2007, 12:02 PM EDT by Anonymous
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Has Slam the Boards been a success? It depends...
Prof. Jeffrey Pomerantz (School of Information and Library Science University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) has written this initial evaluation of librarian participation in Slam the Boards:
http://ils.unc.edu/~jpom/conf/ASIST2008_ERef_Panel.pdf
He recognizes some issues in the data collection...limited sets of questions from Yahoo, the fact that not all librarians consistently used "librarian" in their signatures, etc.
Your thoughts?
--Bill Pardue
Posted:
May 22 2008, 3:50 PM EDT by
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Slam the Boards
I think there should be incentives for the best answers not only the amount.
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Posted:
Jun 27 2008, 11:37 AM EDT by Anonymous
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Targeting boards
I answered about 10 questions on Yahoo Answers as Lesley W., Evanston Public Library.
I wonder if we might be more effective if we picked a different service each month to focus on: first Yahoo, then Ask, then Cantfindon Google, etc. Otherwise, our efforts are dispersed over so many service that the overall effect is weaker.
One frustration I had was the inability to ask follow-up questions. When I'm doing Ask Away or IM reference I can easily clarify what the question is; with the boards there's no quick way to get that, so I often felt my answers were kind of a shot in the dark.
I was also surprised at the variety of questions, many of which were not what I'd normally call "reference". Often I felt I was giving more info than the person actually wanted; it sometimes sounded as though they were more interested in opinions.
It's clear that most users look for subject experts, (attorneys, doctors, accountants etc) rather than librarians who can point them towards resources. I hope Slam the Boards will broaden theri thinking on how to look for information.
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Posted:
Sep 11 2007, 11:44 AM EDT by
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Can't Make 9/10?
be folks who want to have a "Slam the Boards" week. Hey, why not a month? The point is to stay active and engaged in these communities well after
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Last updated:
Aug 16 2007, 11:34 AM EDT by
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Signing Up
A few people have asked how to sign up for "Slam the Boards!" In short, there is no sign up. This is an informal thing. You can just choose your
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Last updated:
Aug 23 2007, 11:22 AM EDT by
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WikiAnswers AnswerThon
/answerthon.html If you do sign up for a WikiAnswers account, make sure to put "Slam the Boards" in the "Where I'm From" box in your
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Last updated:
Feb 20 2008, 11:39 AM EST by
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After the event
evaulation of "Slam the Boards," but this is your chance to tell your stories. Well, I picked up about 25 questions yesterday (I know some folks did
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Last updated:
Sep 11 2007, 1:51 PM EDT by
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Participating Librarians
, anna-stina.axelsson@kultur.stockholm.se (will slam at least one Swedish board!) Alicia Naab, Cleveland Public Library, Cleveland, OH
Last updated:
Oct 10 2008, 1:39 PM EDT by Anonymous
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Answer Board Librarians on Facebook
A long time ago I setup a Facebook group called "Answer Board Librarians."
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=9325045378
It's kind of languished, but I'm hoping to get a bit more activity going there. Check it out, join if you'd like! --Bill
Posted:
Aug 25 2008, 12:33 PM EDT by
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This was very useful...
I really enjoyed doing this. I think it would be wonderful if we could do this regularly, perhaps the first of each month or something. Also, if we could somehow create a comprehensive list of links, leading to all of the Slam the Boards answers - something to be used to calculate our impact and also show how well librarians answer questions. It truly could be a point of national PR. It might be a pain to ask people to add a link to each question to the wiki, but it would also show our numbers in force. One other idea, especially for this day, would be to simply ask people who participated to fill our a survey, sending in the number of questions they answered - and in that way compile a total.
Thank you so much for organizing this day - what a fabulous PR idea!
Sarah Houghton-Jan, LibrarianInBlack.net
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Posted:
Sep 10 2007, 7:29 PM EDT by
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Yahoo Answers
I answered 5 questions in the Health category yesterday (3 practice ones the week before). The questions I saw were similar to the ones our virtual representative and our customer service get daily so it wasn't too much of a stretch or surprise. I no longer am astonished at what people ask "perfect strangers", but I am still saddened by the myths and downright wrong answers that are given (and accepted) by so-called experts. I think that Slam the Boards is so important to show how much ref librarians are needed in the Web 2.0 environment, giving quality, accurate answers to questions. I will continue to answer questions on my own time and encourage our Traditional Library to expand their expert services to younger patrons.
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Posted:
Sep 11 2007, 3:25 PM EDT by
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still answering about once a week
I had good intentions for Slam the Boards, but unfortunately, this is a really busy time of the year at universities, so I've answered a handful of questions at other times. I agree with some other posters--it's really hard to find a question where the user is asking a reference question as opposed to just getting everyone's opinion. I did manage to answer a reader's advisory question (I never get those in academia!) and a few others where I identified myself as a librarian. Others, I've answered as a lay person. I have received a "best answer" but not for my librarian answer. I still look about once a week, usually during my evening reference shift, if it is quiet (and it usually is by 9:30).
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Posted:
Oct 3 2007, 9:17 AM EDT by Anonymous
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WikiAnswers
Hey there! As the Community Coordinator for WikiAnswers, I am pleased to announce that we now have more than 200 Supervisors actively watching over the site. We even have a librarian! But we could sure use more help! I invite you to stop by WikiAnswers and check it out. You might even send me a message on my board: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/User:Crystal.
I'd also love to hear more about Slam the Boards!
Crystal Williams
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Posted:
Jan 5 2008, 8:31 PM EST by
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Conducting an evaluation
I'm teaching the general Reference course at UNC-CH this semester, and Slam the Boards has generated much class discussion. I've been considering adding an optional alternative to one of my assignments, and have my students conduct an evaluation of Slam the Boards.
Honestly I'm not sure what the evaluation questions would be yet. Eval questions could focus on the answers provided: Are the answers provided by librarians really qualitatively better than those not provided by librarians? In those services that have rating schemes, do askers rate librarians' answer higher? Send thank yous more often? Or questions could focus on participation: What percentage of total answers provided on Sept 10 are from librarians? What percentage of libraries in the US are represented? Probably we'd want to focus on both. Suggestions for other evaluation questions are welcome.
I've had an email exchange with Bill and he raised the issue of how we will be able to identify librarian-answered questions. May I recommend that everyone should include the name of your library in your sig block on Sept 10? Or use one of the <a href-"http://answerboards.wetpaint.com/page/Signatures+and+Tag+Lines">Signatures and Tag Lines</a> suggested on this wiki?
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Posted:
Sep 6 2007, 9:25 PM EDT by
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Looking forward!
Glad you're enjoying it! It's hard to say that slamming will get more users into any one particular library. One strategy might be to search for community-specific questions on the boards and play up you library's services in those. I've actually set up a google alert that e-mails me any time a question is posted about Arlington Heights.
That said, you might want to look at ways to get out of the library and interact with patrons who don't know about your services. In the physical world, that might mean simple bookmark handouts at the train station or a local cafe during rush hour (keep it brief!). See if there are local discussion boards you can lurk on and then jump in to answer factual questions and play up library resources and services. That sort of thing. I don't have anything quantitative to say what works, but staying visible is essential!
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Posted:
May 22 2008, 3:40 PM EDT by
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Chat and Networking
This is a chat room for librarians participating in "board slamming" to discuss their activities with one another. It's not intended as a reference
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Last updated:
Sep 18 2007, 3:12 PM EDT by BillAHML
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