askON logos together  

 askON staff news  

winter 2014
in this update
askON by the numbers
askON TEXT Pilot Project Update
Guelph Public Library Staff Challenge
askON by the numbers
 
  
  
We have great return visitor rates, which means a lot of regulars. Note that in the Summer we get some new visitors. This chart is also similar to overall traffic trends. As school and college assignments ramp up, so does our traffic. 
What do our visitors think of us? They consistently
rate us both "excellent" and "good" between 75% and 100% of the time.
askON TEXT pilot project update
 askON TEXT logo   
 After a successful first phase, the askON TEXT pilot is gearing up for another strong term as it moves into its second phase which will run for 15 weeks from January until the end of April.

Wi
th the launch of Phase 2 of the askON TEXT pilot, we welcome 4 new partners to the service - 
Richmond Hill Public Library, Whitby Public Library, Confederation College Library, and Fleming College Library.  Both Richmond Hill Public Library and Confederation College Library are already members of the askON family, joining our hybrid staff as they take on both our live CHAT and TEXT service. Whitby Public Library and Fleming College Library, however, are new partners joining us just for the TEXT service. Welcome to all our new partners!

Currently Phase 2 of the askON TEXT pilot is in the middle of Week 5 and we are already noticing some new and interesting statistics. As of February 2nd
 , the end of week 4 of the pilot, we have received a total of 88 questions. That's 52 less questions than the service received in the first four weeks of launch in phase 1. While the Public queue is at par with numbers from phase 1, the College queue is playing catch up from phase 1 to phase 2. In fact, for the first time in askON TEXT history, the Public queue beat out the College queue by an additional 2 questions in week 2. College statistics are expected to increase as our colleges students dive into their winter class assignments.

Despite lower statistics for our first four weeks, we are happy to report that visitors from our new partner libraries - Whitby Public Library and Fleming College Library - have taken enthusiastically to the askON TEXT service, leading the count for both the Public and College queue for three weeks in a row. We hope to see their enthusiasm continue throughout the rest of the pilot, and we encourage an extra push to promotions and awareness in our TEXT libraries to see the numbers for all our Public and College libraries improve in the coming weeks.
Guelph Public Library Staff Challenge
by Meg Forestell-Page
 In 2013, we began challenging staff with a monthly "test". Each month, an eResource was chosen to highlight. GPL's marketing coordinator would put together a marketing kit and the idea was to "push" that resource to our customers. However, what good was it to push a product if only some staff knew how to use it? Introducing the "eResource Challenge"! Each month I would come up with 2-3 questions that forced staff to actually use the tool to discover the answer.

Our January online tool for the month was askON Chat and askON TEXT services. Our questions were: "What public libraries participate in the askON chat service", "How does a customer ask an askON chat question?" and "What is GPL's text number and where can you find it on our website?" We also had bonus questions: "What colour is the askON button when the service is live?", "What colour is it when the service is off" and "When the service is off, where do GPL customers' questions go?". Click here for Meg's full article. 

Quick Links 

Announcements

  

* SOLS Webinar to feature askON! Jan will be running a webinar about virtual reference through the lens of askON. Please encourage libraries "outside the askON tent" to register!

* askON Month marketing materials! Confederation College's Arlene Danyleyko has been hard at work developing some fresh marketing materials. Please find some of them here in the Marketing section of the staff portal. Customize them or be inspired by them!