Meeting Minutes: January 17, 2008
InfoEyes Advisory Committee Meeting
Location:
Minnesota Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped OPAL Online Room
Time:
2:00 pm ET / 1:00 pm CT / 12:00 p.m. MT / 11:00 a.m. PT
Attendees:
Donna Cirenza, Devon Gary, Catherine Durivage, Deborah Margolis, Karen Odean, Linda Rossman, Robin Rousu, Sharon Ruda, Julie Strange, Joe Thompson
Statistics
Catherine's review of monthly and annual information:
- December 2007: 11 questions received
- December 2006: 23 questions received
- Year Total 2007: 221 questions received
- Year Total 2006: 304 questions received
This shows a drop in usage of 27% from 2006 to 2007.
Catherine has noted a substantial decrease in the number of questions. Linda believes that the Talking Book Topics article brought some more awareness, but that dropped quickly. We may need to find some additional methods for promotion.
Catherine noted that the survey responses we receive are very positive, which does say a lot about the service that people are receiving.
Introduction of new InfoEyes Librarian for Pittsburgh - Devon Gary
Linda welcomed Devon.
InfoEyes article in 'The Reference Librarian' journal
Article on our service and virtual reference for 'The Reference Librarian' journal and online survey being conducted.
Catherine and Linda are working on a long scholarly article. A survey is being done. They'll be looking for quotes from some of us. Catherine noted that they want to get some context from us why we got involved in the program and what skill sets each person has brought to the project. Linda noted that it's a big challenge working with someone halfway across the country, but they are up to it!
The article will include a history of InfoEyes, issues of accessibility, challenges, etc. People are still encouraged to fill out the survey. Catherine provided the link to the survey.
Linda asked if there were other ideas on promotion. Joe reflected on the ideas we had put forward during the November meeting regarding promotion on email listservs. He suggested the idea of sending publicity to email listservs to promote that public, academic, other libraries link to InfoEyes. Julie suggested the development of an online toolkit on the InfoEyes web site, which could include InfoEyes logos and suggested annotations that libraries could use to describe what InfoEyes offers. The link to this toolkit would be included in the email message that will be sent to listservs.
Deborah offered to create a list of appropriate email listservs that we should send the message to.
Catherine and Linda will write the first draft of the message certainly before the next meeting. Others will play the role of editing. This could attract other public librarians to collaborate with us too.
OCLC billing status
Catherine: Diana Sussman couldn't attend today's meeting, however Catherine noted that everyone should have received a bill from the Southern Illiniois Talking Book and Braille Library by now. If you haven't please contact Diana at dbrawley@shawls.lib.il.us.
Old Business
Linda reminded all of us to close questions in QuestionPoint once they've been answered.
156 records are now active in the local KnowledgeBase.
Joe asked if any InfoEyes presentations or training are planned. There are none at this time. The most recent presentation/training was offered on September 20.
Julie asked about the development of a list of InfoEyes resources for use when librarians are answering questions. Linda offered the Clearinghouse link on the Perkins web site: http://www.perkins.org/clearinghouse/
Catherine asked about Chat2 and Joe said that the next QuestionPoint install is set for early March.
New Business:
None.
Linda thanked everyone for their participation. Linda and Catherine will communicate with everyone via the list regarding the article that is being written and action items from this meeting and previous meeting.
The meeting adjourned at 2:35 p.m. ET.
Next Meeting:
Thursday March 20, 2008 at 2:00 pm Eastern / 1:00 pm Central
Minutes submitted by Joe Thompson.