Tasmin Bolton to be Presented with First SS Green Award at Marketing Virtual Reference Services Program at ALA

[Stephen Coffman]

Tasmin Bolton of the University of Winnipeg Library Wins S.S. Green Award for Best Reference Transaction

 

 

Steve Coffman of Library Systems and Services LLC is pleased to announce that Tamsin Bolton, Information Literacy Intern for 2001/02 at the University of Winnipeg Library has won the first  $500 bimonthly award for the best transcript of a virtual synchronous reference transaction.  She graduated from the Master's of Library and Information Science at McGill University in 2001.  The award is named in honor of Samuel Swett Green, the founder of reference services in the United States and will be presented at ALA in Atlanta on Saturday, 15 June at the “Marketing Virtual Reference Services” program at 3pm in GWCC A302.  It is all together fitting and appropriate that the Award should be presented at Marketing Virtual Reference Services, because it is the skill, expertise and dedication of librarians like Tamsin that distinguish us from so many of our competitors on the Web.  

 

This transaction was selected by a nine-member panel of distinguished practitioners and researchers panelists including Marie Radford (Pratt Institute), Marianne Sweet (SJRLC), James Rettig (University of Richmond), Tracy Strobel (Clevenet), Ilene Rockman (Editor, Reference Services Review), Barbara Quint (Editor, Searcher Magazine), and Amy VanScoy (NCSU).  John Richardson, LSSI's Presidential Scholar, chaired the panel and helped maintain the single blind review status of the award.

 

In selecting the best electronic transcript of a chat or live and real time transaction (but not an email transaction), the panel considered relevant quality factors such as accuracy of the answer, user as well as librarian satisfaction, and utility of the answer to the user.  In support of their selection, members said: “I think one of its strengths is that it demonstrates that the chat medium has far more potential than many seem willing to allow it.  If our standard for judging quality of any reference transaction in any medium is a well managed (open-ended questioning, confirming with the patron that information offered meets need etc.), face-to-face reference transaction, then this shows that chat can incorporate the strengths (as well as some of the pitfalls) of face-to-face.  It also illustrates some of the challenges that reference librarians can expect to encounter that were absent from face-to-face (although sometimes present in telephone reference); for example, the diagnosis of the presence/absence of client software on the patron's machine is problem we can anticipate will recur, given the infinite permutations of equipment, PC speed, modem speeds, ISPs, loaded client software, user knowledge, and user comfort level.”  Yet another says, “It stands out from the others for the librarian's humor, relaxed tone, and overall warm vibes. User generous in praise, information given is appropriate.”

 

The next deadline is 14 July 2002; and interested submitters should review the panel's checklist at http://purl.org/net/checklist and then submit their transcript to http://orca.pwl.com/greenaward/green_submit.html.

 

 

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