Yum...really enjoyed looking at the Taste website...another one to add to my delicious account...yes it is really good to know whether recipes turn out okay so the rating are very important... because they are done by people who have actually tried the recipe.
I could not believe the number of questions that had been asked...awaiting answers...they just kept popping up every second. I never knew these sites existed...there must be people sitting on these sites all night and day. Where do you begin to answer some of these questions? There were over 2,000,000 questions waiting for answers on WikiAnswers when I last looked and I'm guessing at a similar number on Yahoo!7 Answers...absolutely incredible. There were definitely some pretty easy questions eg. "What are some good vampire books?" and "Which fruits contain vitamin B?" I would have thought these would be found just searching the web...
I looked at the Answer Board Librarians wiki and could definitely see a big difference in the type of answer given by the librarian to that of the general public. Q." How do I improve the look of my house through landscaping?" dt~librarian's answer was extremely comprehensive giving links to books, websites, articles and associations that could help, earning a 5* rating from the Asker where as Z-Dub's answer was "lots of pink flamingos and garden gnomes"... really!!!
The feedback from most askers was really positive with one saying- "Thank you for that answer. That is the most in-depth answer I have ever had, very informative and knowledgeable."... but isn't this what we do every day!
I would like to think that yes there is a place for our library in "slamming the boards". We have a great information services and technical services team, as well as some pretty well informed branch staff with years and years of answering questions... both the weird and the wonderful.
When I was looking for a definition of 'Slam the boards' I came across this in WikiAnswers-
"To 'Slam the boards' can also mean to slam two hardcover books together forcefully in order to shift dust from off them."... Maybe this is what I need to do to stop the dust from gathering-participate in providing some authoritative answers on answer boards.
Chockies, flowers and Thank You cards have been the way that most patrons let us know if they are happy with the service we are providing... nothing wrong with that! or the very infrequent letter of complaint. But of course we must move into the 21st century and provide our patrons with a place for them to voice their opinion on services and collections... so yes maybe an answer board on the web site would be useful... of course only if it were properly staffed. A lot of our patrons are elderly so I still think we'll be getting chockies for awhile yet!
1 comments:
Glad you found the stuff on Answerboards interesting ... do you think librarians in NSW should jump on the boards occasionally in the Slam the Boards program?
Mylee (PLS)
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