Reference @ the Metcalfe: 2008

Last week I attended the Reference @ the Metcalfe Seminar at the State Library. This Seminar is a chance for staff from NSW public libraries to get together and find out about the interesting developments that are happening in reference services throughout the state. I was fortunate enough to be asked to present at the seminar - giving my thoughts about where reference services are heading.

There were some very interesting presentations made during the day. I think you will be able to chase up more information about them (slides, links, etc) on the Reference and Information Servces (RISG) blog in due course.

For those who are interested my talk was about Reference Services, technology and community - a future planning/strategic thinking sort of presentation. You can view the presentation (slides and audio) on the RISG blog or on SlideShare (try it on a TAC PC).

Seb Chan from the Powerhouse Museum gave a wonderful talk about what they are doing with their collection online, essentially their web catalogue. They are really focusing on what he called 'disintermediating' the collection metadata from the catalogue - offering the collection records in such a way that they can be used easily by the public in all sorts of different places outside the PM web site and allowing the public to contribute to the collection metadata. They are doing many of the things that I was suggesting libraries need to start doing. It just showed that while I was talking about the future - the future is closer than we think.

Cathy Johnson from Clarence Regional Library talked about the Slam the Boards movement and how libraries can promote themselves through the various answer board sites on the web.

Ellen Forsyth from the State Library presented the findings of her study tour of the USA where she examined the benefits of Roving Reference. There are a number of libraries that are downsizing reference desks and making reference staff roam the library to offer users assistance with finding information. The benefits of such roving reference services and the technology employed to make it possible were covered in an eye opening talk.

Kathryn Joss gave us an overview of the corporate library service offered by the City of Sydney Library.

Ross Balharrie from Manly introduced the group to the various sites that reference and other library staff can use as part of the RISG community - the RISG blog, the RISG New Technologies blog and the RISG Forum - encouraging reference staff to be part of the online community and not save the sharing for the once-a-year seminar.

Genie Wilson form Horsnby Library shared their experience in implementing Webfeat, a federated search solution. Webfeat allows users to search across all their journal databases at the same time. An interesting idea that I have been following but which is not without its problems.

Finally, staff from the northern beaches (Manly, Warringah and Pittwater) presented their work developing Inside Break, a collaborative web site supporting HSC students.

It was an interesting day with much food for thought. If you want more information let me know or just check out the RISG blog in the upcoming week or so for details from the speakers.