AskAway Best Practice Session, June 18th from 10:30-noon
hosted by Illinois
(Register Here)

Here are the topics for this month's best practice:

Lori Bell of Alliance Library System and Charlotte Bruce of Olney Central College will discuss the Altarama cooperative text a librarian project and texting's future in libraries plus updates from Wisconsin, Minnesota and Illinois cooperatives

Hope you can join us!

Hosted by Minnesota (Review the recording)

Guest speaker Paula Rumbaugh will join us to talk about an update with Reports and Statistics for QuestionPoint.
AskMN now has a group page on WebJunction and will be adding a Facebook page next.
Check out the MnKnows website, http://www.mnknows.org/

This best practice session is made possible by AskMN

Hosted by Illinois (Review Recording)

Please join us at the April virtual reference best practices session. We are excited to have Buff Hirko, the former Washington statewide virtual reference coordinator and frequent speaker and writer on virtual reference joining us. She will be discussing strategies for marketing your virtual reference service.

Buff would like to tailor the session to your questions. Please email any topics or questions you would like Buff to discuss to ntagge@ilsos.net by Monday, April 13th.

This best practice session is made possible by the Illinois OCLC Users Group (IOUG)

Hosted by Wisconsin (review recording)

The agenda:
- Business update and general best practices reminders
- Helping Patrons during tough economic times
- Statistics
- Public relations activity in Wisconsin
- Update from Joy Schwarz - Winnefox Library System
- Updates from Illinois and Minnesota

Best Practices, August 20, 2009 (Register)
hosted by Minnesota

Best Practices, September 17, 2009 (Register)
Hosted by Wisconsin

Best Practices, October 15, 2009 (Register)
hosted by Minnesota

Best Practices, November 19, 2009 (Register)
Hosted by Wisconsin

Best Practices, December 17, 2009 (Register)
hosted by Minnesota

Illinois was host—review recording.
Ever wonder how the back up librarians manage to answer so many questions and so well? Is it voodoo? Mega-skills? Pure luck?
Join our own back up librarans, Louise Greene and John Dey to learn the tips and tricks that 24/7 back up librarians use to provide great service.
In Addition we will cover:
- Transcript review
- AskAway Illinois billing update
- Reminders, including the URL for the recording of last weeks QuestionPoint Enhancement webinar

10:30- 12:00 p.m.
Minnesota hosts.

This months topics include:
— Refresher on co-browsing
— AskMN's Answering Percentage
— New Policy Page guidelines
— Placing timed links to web pages
— Chat transcript reviews good and bad
Review recording

Martha and Allison and Wisconsin host this session.

The end of year sessions primary topics were:

• Adding links to AskAway throughout your website, why should you do it and how
• Dealing with rude patrons
• An AskAway business update
• Chat transcript reviews good and bad

Review Recording December 18, 2008

Best Practices Webinar for November 23, 2008, 10:30am to noon
Hosted by Illinois, topics for discussion will include:

• Paula Rumbaugh from QuestionPoint will be presenting on QP reports and how to utilize them
• News on features and functionality coming in the November and January software upgrades
• AskAway Illinois finalized pricing for 2009 will be discussed
• Potential transcript reviews and policy reminders

Review recording November 20, 2008.

Notice! This session was originally scheduled for Oct 16th and due to multiple schedule conflicts has been moved to: Thursday Oct 23rd, 2008 at the usual 10:30 to 12:00 c.s.t.

Thursday's Best Practices session, hosted by Wisconsin will feature:

• Our monthly business update and general best practice reminders
  
• News on features and functionality coming in the November and January software upgrades
  
• Philosophy, policy and great sites to help when you're working with students
  
• What's going well and what could be better (transcripts, etc.)

Review recording--October 23, 2008.

Thursday September 18th, 2008, 10:30am - noon

Fall is here and it's back to school. Which means it's back to school based virtual reference questions along with all the other interesting topics and issues. Join other Ask Away librarians from Wisconsin and Illinois by attending the next monthly "Best Practices" sessions webinar. If you are new to virtual reference these webinars are an excellent introduction. For experienced VR librarians the monthly sessions refresh and rejuvenate.

The September session as hosted by Natalie Tagge and AskAway Illinois will cover:

- Business updates and general best practices reminders
- 2009 update, ILA AskAway information
- Best practices chat follow-up reminder
- Mary Wilkes Towner, Urbana Free Library Reference Librarian, will discuss answering virtual readers advisory questions and share sites to find quick and effective answers
- AskAway Wisconsin Week PR campaign

Please Register Now
Go to Wisconsin Library Services, scroll down to WiLS Virtual Reference Best Practices and register for the session. By attending a Best Practices session, you will hear timely topics about virtual reference, expand your knowledge with guest speakers, have examples of e-mail and chat sessions and strengthen your reference skills.

For more information on AskAway Best Practices including powerpoints and recordings from previous sessions as well as general best practices guidelines and links, check out the AskAway Best Practices wiki page.

You can check out the Recording here.

Join us to talk about reference AND your virtual reference issues. Join other Ask Away librarians from Wisconsin and Illinois and attend the next monthly "Best Practices" sessions webinar. If you are new to virtual reference this is an excellent introduction. For experienced VR librarians the monthly sessions refresh and rejuvenate. This month's Best Practices Session webinar will be hosted by Martha Berninger of AskAway Wisconsin.

This session will cover:

- Business update and general best practices reminders
- Report on ALA Virtual Reference sessions
- Patron link to the QuestionPoint global Knowledge Base
- Review of best practices for working with UK patrons
- Update on the public school test of AskAway
- Statistical reports
- Review of transcripts

Please Register Now
Go to Wisconsin Library Services, scroll down to WiLS Virtual Reference Best Practices and register for the session. By attending a Best Practices session, you will hear timely topics about virtual reference, expand your knowledge with guest speakers, have examples of e-mail and chat sessions and strengthen your reference skills.

For more information on AskAway Best Practices including powerpoints and recordings from previous sessions as well as general best practices guidelines and links, check out the AskAway Best Practices wiki page.

You can check out the Recording here.

Illinois hosted and the topics included:

Business updates
General best practices reminders
Helping AskAway patrons with genealogy questions
Transcript reviews
Update of AskAway Illinois cooperative in post grant period

You can check out the Recording right here