NCknows March 2013 Monthly Report
Chats:
This Month: 2103 (coop coverage) + 673 (libraries monitoring their own queues) = 2776
Last Month: 2099 (coop coverage) + 929 (libraries monitoring their own queues) = 3028
This Month Last Year: 2106 + 649 (LH3 independents)= 2755
Comments: Finally! Here’s a tool where you can see the stats for your own library:
http://ncknows.philblank.net/gwentest/LibStats.php
Thanks for your patience on this one. We hope to update it within the first couple of business days of each new month. We are also (and always) working out the kinks with stats. Sometimes a small error in code will make it look like you have no chats or fewer chats than you do, when really these chats have just been recorded under the general “ncknows” category instead of your library. Also, these chats just reflect the questions answered by the ncknows coop, so if you are monitoring your service separately, those will not be counted here. If you ever suspect something is off, or have any questions at all, just let ncknows@gmail.com know. A BIG thanks to the very excellent Gwen Exner, from our backup staff, for her amazing help with this. Her expert knowledge of spreadsheets was invaluable.
I’ve mentioned this earlier but it’s an important thing to remember- overall, traffic has increased dramatically since we transitioned to widgets and Libraryh3lp. However, when you look at the statistics by library you will see that some libraries, particularly those who have been able to take advantage of LH3’s widget and flexibility, have really grown dramatically while others have not grown as much. We’ve been able to identify some really basic fundamentals about marketing: http://ncknows.org/market.html . As always, let me know if you want individual help with this. Our review of libraries whose code was incorrect, or whose marketing made the service somewhat hard to use, is wrapping up. I hope that some libraries will begin to see more traffic in the future.
There is also a new staff site: http://ncknows.org/nclh.html . My hope is that you will be able to completely train yourself and staff at your library with these tools. I’ve also included videos on many of the components so you can see the tasks in action. I’ll be adding to this and refining it over the summer as well.
“Websites of Note”
Here is Fayetteville State’s front page. You will notice the Libraryh3lp widget is prominently displayed. Fayetteville State also monitors their own patrons during some of the daytime hours. You will notice that we change the title of the widget to let the patron know more about who they can be expect to find on the other end.
Transcripts of the Month
There is so many nice details about this transcript I’m not sure where to start.
- First the call came in from the general ncknows queue, but John Raynor from High Point Public Library, expertly noticed that the referring url was from Wake Tech, so he proceeds to help them as a Wake Tech Patron (the code on the WT site has since been fixed.)
- Second, John does something very rare- he takes a moment to explain what NC LIVE actually is!
- He then proceeds to walk the patron through every step of the process of finding research articles, always careful to explain to the patron what he is doing. At each stage he offers expert help- from choosing databases to refining search results to using some of the wonderful but lesser used functionality in Academic Search Complete.
- At the same time, he does a great job of making sure the patron is getting what they need. John is a master of the friendly, helpful and welcoming tone.
Great work John!
17:17 PATRON how can i find a research article?
17:17 hppl-john@libraryh3lp.com hi
17:17 hppl-john@libraryh3lp.com welcome to ncknows
17:17 hppl-john@libraryh3lp.com i would suggest using nclive for that. have you ever used nclive before?
17:17 PATRON no never
17:18 hppl-john@libraryh3lp.com hrm... okay... well, first let me explain that "nclive" is a package of information resources that most public and many academic libraries in NC subscribe to, through the state.
17:18 PATRON ok
17:18 hppl-john@libraryh3lp.com it includes some databases of the full text of articles from scholarly/academic publications
17:19 hppl-john@libraryh3lp.com first i'm going to have to figure out how to get to nclive from your library website
17:19 PATRON ok
17:20 hppl-john@libraryh3lp.com okay, so go to the front page of the library website:
17:20 hppl-john@libraryh3lp.com http://www.waketech.edu/student-services/libraries
17:20 hppl-john@libraryh3lp.com then click on "research databases" over on the left side of the page
17:20 hppl-john@libraryh3lp.com you should get to a page that looks like this:
17:20 hppl-john@libraryh3lp.com http://www.waketech.edu/student-services/libraries/research-databases
17:21 PATRON yea i did
17:21 hppl-john@libraryh3lp.com okay... see how iit says "popular nclive resources" ? those are direct links to three of the databases in the nclive package.
17:21 hppl-john@libraryh3lp.com what's your paper on?
17:22 PATRON psychology
17:22 hppl-john@libraryh3lp.com hrm... okay... you might start with Academic Search Complete
17:22 hppl-john@libraryh3lp.com you could also try PsycInfo... (scroll down)
17:23 hppl-john@libraryh3lp.com the problem with PsycInfo, however, is that you *don't* get the full text of the articles, just the abstracts (summaries)
17:24 hppl-john@libraryh3lp.com so would you like me to do a demo of Academic Search Complete, then?
17:24 PATRON yes
17:24 hppl-john@libraryh3lp.com okay...
17:24 hppl-john@libraryh3lp.com so click on Academic Search Complete
17:24 hppl-john@libraryh3lp.com hang on while i load the database at this end
17:25 PATRON got it
17:25 hppl-john@libraryh3lp.com okay... so what's your particular topic?
17:27 hppl-john@libraryh3lp.com are you still there?
17:28 PATRON yea my topic is improving memory
17:28 hppl-john@libraryh3lp.com okay... let's try a sample search then
17:29 hppl-john@libraryh3lp.com so i just typed "memory improvement" into that search box, to start with a simple easy keyword search, and got 5479 results.
17:29 hppl-john@libraryh3lp.com http://ehis.ebscohost.com/ehost/results?sid=596d0090-6a6b-42da-960e-1803641396ae%40sessionmgr114&vid=2&hid=104&bquery=memory+AND+improvement&bdata=JmRiPWE5aCZ0eXBlPTAmc2l0ZT1laG9zdC1saXZl
17:29 hppl-john@libraryh3lp.com now, over on the left you'll see a sidebar with the heading "refine your results"
17:30 hppl-john@libraryh3lp.com you can use that to specify a date range + restrict your search to only articles where the full text is available.
17:30 PATRON ok
17:30 hppl-john@libraryh3lp.com there are 2055 results with full text
17:30 hppl-john@libraryh3lp.com and let's narrow it to only the last 10 years
17:30 PATRON ok
17:31 hppl-john@libraryh3lp.com that cuts it down to "just" 1603 results. :)
17:31 hppl-john@libraryh3lp.com http://ehis.ebscohost.com/ehost/results?sid=596d0090-6a6b-42da-960e-1803641396ae%40sessionmgr114&vid=3&hid=104&bquery=memory+AND+improvement&bdata=JmRiPWE5aCZ0eXBlPTAmc2l0ZT1laG9zdC1saXZl
17:31 hppl-john@libraryh3lp.com but let's narrow it down some more
17:31 hppl-john@libraryh3lp.com do you see where it says "subject: thesaurus term" on the left ?
17:32 PATRON yes i see it
17:32 hppl-john@libraryh3lp.com that shows some subject heads that at least some of the articles in your search results have.
17:32 PATRON ok
17:32 hppl-john@libraryh3lp.com so... of those 1603 articles, 264 had the specific subject heading of "memory"
17:33 hppl-john@libraryh3lp.com click where it says "show more"
17:33 hppl-john@libraryh3lp.com you should get a long list of several dozen subject headings
17:33 PATRON yes
17:34 PATRON i picked one
17:34 hppl-john@libraryh3lp.com okay... so let's narrow your search to only include articles about... say... "memory disorders"
17:34 hppl-john@libraryh3lp.com we can click on that check-box
17:34 hppl-john@libraryh3lp.com then click "update"
17:35 hppl-john@libraryh3lp.com so we get 43 full-text articles... all published in the last 10 years... that include the keywords "memory" and "improvement" and were indexed under the subject heading "memory disorders"
17:35 hppl-john@libraryh3lp.com so does that give you a sense of how academic source complete works?
17:36 PATRON yes...thanks for ur help
17:36 hppl-john@libraryh3lp.com no problem! do you have any questions?
17:37 PATRON no thats all thank u
17:37 hppl-john@libraryh3lp.com great. thanks for using ncknows + good luck with your paper!
17:37 hppl-john@libraryh3lp.com :)