AskAway Blog

Welcome back to AskAway!

Welcome Back!

We hope you enjoyed your summer and are feeling ready for the exciting fall term ahead. In this post, try out the Refresher Quiz to help you stay sharp then check out the rest of the blog post below to learn about updates for the new term and reminders about the supports and resources available to AskAway Service Providers.

Reflection on the 2023 North American Virtual Reference Online Conference (NAVROC)

The North American Virtual Reference Online Conference (NAVROC) took place from February 21-23, 2023. For those who were unable to attend or would like to revisit a session, recordings will be available on the conference website soon.  

The keynote presentation and theme for the conference was Wholehearted Libraries: Meeting the Needs of Community, from Dr. Michael Stephens of the School of Information at San Jose State University. This theme translated into the great variety of sessions presented over the three half days. Sessions covered a wide range of topics, some of which are directly applicable to AskAway while others are more relevant in the broader virtual reference environment.  

In Celebration of the New AskAway Chat Tag: Open Education

The new Open Education tag allows us to track those questions when a service provider explains or provides access to Open Access, Open Education, or Open Textbook resources. This includes questions about no-cost textbook options, for example a student looking for an older version of a textbook from the library. In celebration of this new tag, Elizabeth Padilla (BCIT) shares the B.C. Open Collection and her role in developing the new home for the collection.

Update: Recommended Citation Guides and Websites

In this post, find out about recent updates to the Recommended Citation Guides and Websites. Many thanks to Elizabeth Fernandes (Liaison Librarian at University Canada West), Shannon Moist (Head of Reference Services at Douglas College) and Tina Bebbington (Humanities Librarian at the University of Victoria) for their work on this update!

Three New AskAway Tags

There are three new tags that you can now apply to your AskAway chat sessions in LibraryH3lp: Copyright, Course Reserves, and Open Education. These tags were recommended by AskAway participants and will help the service and libraries better understand student needs in these areas. The Interlibrary Loan tag has also been updated to include (ILL) so that it is faster to bring up in the drop-down list by typing ILL.

Pages