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Chat Reference Operational Group (CROG)

Notes from the Meeting of April 28, 2006

Present: Christy Branston (recorder), Doug Morton, Dan Sich, Carol Steele, Marina Wan

1. Scheduling

The group discussed issues surrounding scheduling for chat reference. The following recommendations were made:

Scheduling of the chat reference service should be consistent with practices for scheduling of our physical reference desks, as the reasons for having a scheduler for this service would be the same.  The people scheduling the physical desk already have access to all the vacation schedules, so it seems logical to assign this task to them.  In our discussion we noted that scheduling the chat desk involves staff from two libraries who report vacations to different schedulers, and so we feel it would make sense for the Davis scheduler and the Porter scheduler to be involved in maintaining the chat schedule together.  One way to make the team-based scheduling easier is to use an online scheduler program.  Monitoring the chat calendar could be primarily the responsibility of the Davis scheduler, and the Porter scheduler could be the back-up person. A weekly desk alert would be sent out by the Davis scheduler (who has access to vacation information) to Chat staff listing vacancies – just as is the practice with the physical desk schedule. Chat staff would then respond when they can pick up shifts and would indicate that they will make the change to the schedule in the chat calendar.

ACTION: Marina will investigate the use of Bookit for scheduling.
ACTION: Christy will send recommendatnions to Shabiran.

2. Extension of Chat Hours

The group discussed issues surrounding possible exension of the chat hours. 

ACTION: Marina will pull positive feedback comments from chat transcripts and send these to Christy.
ACTION: Christy will send out an email inviting more staff to become involved in the chat reference service.

3. Promotion of Chat

The group discussed promotional ideas for advertising the chat service. One idea involved frequently requesting a note about chat on the news area of the homepage.

ACTION: Dan will mock up an "ask a librarian" link for TRELLIS.

 


May 23, 2006