[Web4lib] ...Tracking... reference desk enquiries/transactions

[David Whelan]

Craighton offers a lot of good suggestions.  I've only ever seen reference 
tracking done from the perspective of either internal tracking or for the 
purposes of creating a FAQ resource based on the questions/answers, but 
not linked to an individual account.

Another solution which comes to mind would be to use something like a help 
desk ticket tracking system, where reference requests are treated like 
help desk requests.  Many of those have a remote component, enabling an IT 
customer to see when their ticket is closed.  There seems to have been a 
lot of Web4lib discussion a few years back on help desk systems.  Has 
anyone used a system like that for reference?

David.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
David P. Whelan, J.D., M.L.S.
Manager, Legal Information
Law Society of Upper Canada
130 Queen Street West, 
Toronto, Ontario  M5H 2N6
tel: 416.947.3438    fax:  416.367.2635
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"Craighton Hippenhammer" <CHHammer at olivet.edu> 
Sent by: web4lib-bounces at webjunction.org
2008-08-19 06:11 PM

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<don.saklad at gmail.com>, <web4lib at webjunction.org>
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Subject
Re: [Web4lib] ...Tracking...  reference desk    enquiries/transactions




Normally, tracking reference queries and circulation and reserve 
transactions are librarian functions, not library patron activities. 
Integrated Library Systems usually take care of the last two and reference 
queries can be tracked in commonly available databases like Microsoft 
Access.  I'm not aware of software that would track library visits and 
reference desk transactions as such -- I'd recommend MS Access for that. 
Reference IM communications could be saved, I suppose, but would have to 
saved into some organizing software or card system.  Home book 
cataloging/library management software like collectorz.com, Readerware (
http://www.sorice.com/rwbooks.html), Book Librarian Plus (
http://turbosystems.com/blw31.htm), and librarything.com could take care 
of part of what is being asked but would have problems with tracking 
reference interviews and what wasn't found. 

Social Web 2.0 book sharing web sites like www.shelfari.com, 
http://reader2.com/, and http://www.gurulib.com/ are not probably what is 
wanted either as they are likely to be too public and too limited. 
Bibliographic software like http://www.biblioscape.com/ and 
http://www.endnote.com/ can help with tracking research citations, whether 
the actual materials have been found or not, but are not likely to help 
much in situations where no response has been returned and/or citations 
have not been found.  Perhaps PIM or PDA software that has tickler 
functionality would be more helpful for those purposes.

Craighton Hippenhammer
Information Technology Librarian
Olivet Nazarene University
Bourbonnais, IL 60914
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