Training Opportunities for AskAway Librarians

AskAway Training/Refresher Hands-on Workshop

Wednesday, February 13th, 1:00 - 4:30 p.m.
at Milwaukee Public Library, 814 W. Wisconsin Ave.,
2nd floor computer training lab (capacity limit - 20)


AskAway Training/Refresher Online Session
Friday, February 22nd, 9:00 a.m. - 1:00 p.m.

Register directly with WisLine Conferencing: www.uwex.edu/ics/wlwreg/wlwwelcome.cfm
To register, select Wisconsin Library Services, then select AskAway Training. Participants will receive an email with URL login information and the WisLine free 800 number for the audio portion of the session.

Additional training sessions will be scheduled upon demand and based on the popularity of these two initially scheduled workshops.

Virtual Reference can be an integral part of the library's online presence.  Just as reference is a part of the whole, like collections and circulation and story time and book clubs, so VR is a part of the virtual whole library like the web site and opac and badger link databases.  It's increasingly difficult to find the budget to staff as many library hours as you might like, or your patrons want, the virtual library is another way to continue to deliver library services to your patrons 24/7/365.  Over and over in virtual reference services it's been found that the best public relations start with the libraries and librarians themselves. In response, AskAway has developed a PR Kit to promote virtual reference.

The AskAway PR Kit is intended to help you promote the service to your patrons.  Going hand-in-hand with the kit we are offering a new round of training/refresher courses for librarians who are the virtual reference providers.  Although the AskAway consortium does not put specific requirements on its members, every participating library is expected to support this service in some way, e.g., providing coverage, committee service, follow-ups and expertise, or knowledge-based work.  The advantage to providing coverage is that those librarians become the very best PR providers.

During the coming week AskAway home libraries will be receiving packets and a mailing tubes of AskAway promotional materials. These are the AskAway PR Kits. Each kit consists of a poster, bookmarks, magnets and pencils to use in the coming month for AskAway promotional activities for library patrons.  The costs of the kits has been covered by various monies from WiLS and Reference & Loan.  The AskAway PR Kit web page links to resources for ordering additional promotional items for your own library.