FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

[Louise Stewart]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
8 November 2002

FOR MORE INFORMATION:
John Richardson johnr at lssi.com



Janette Shaffer, Distance Services Librarian at the


University of Nebraska Medical Center Library

Wins S.S. Green Award for Best Reference Transaction


Steve Coffman of Library Systems and Services LLC is pleased to announce
that Janette Shaffer of the University of Nebraska’s Medical Center Library
has won the latest award for the best transcript of a virtual synchronous
reference transaction. The award is named in honor of Samuel Swett Green,
the founder of reference services in the United States and will be presented
during the Virtual Reference Desk Conference in Chicago, Illinois which
meets 9-12 November 2002.

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 first Presidential Scholar, chaired the panel.

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 noted that the “Librarian kept the patron informed of her
search strategy and gave helpful advice for searching on their own;
librarian answered the question; librarian used a casually professional tone
that seems to work very well in the virtual setting; patron was happy with
the results. Both librarian and patron already had a high level of knowledge
of the appropriate resources and subject area.”  Several members observed,
“She's great with probing questions to diagnosis the need, letting the
patron know what she's doing (especially in this VR context), takes time to
explain truncation and alternate search terms.”  Note that the “Librarian
patient, not condescending or judgmental, even when repeating instructions,
good basic search strategy, results relevant to user.

The next deadline is January 2, 2003; 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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