• The new patron notification (and the accompanying “ding”) failed to display
• The “save transcript” window fails to open at the end of a chat session

The root problem of both of these behaviours seems to be pop-up blockers. Make sure that you turn off the pop-up blocker on your browser before beginning your LiveHelp shift. You can turn it back on at the end of your shift.

How to turn of Internet Explorer’s Pop-Up Blocker

1. Open Internet Explorer
2. Click on the “tools” button on the menu bar
3. Click on “pop-up blocker”
4. Click on “Turn off Pop-up Blocker.”

How to turn on Internet Explorer’s Pop-Up Blocker

1. Open Internet Explorer
2. Click on the “tools” button on the menu bar
3. Click on “pop-up blocker” (if you don’t see this option, you do not have a pop-up blocker built into Internet Explorer)
4. Click on “Turn on Pop-up Blocker.”

1. What is LiveHelp
2. Why/when would someone use it.

Need It Ad

The text of the add is not finalized. Please take a look and leave your feedback in a comment [requires logging in] or email the drp list.

1. New Participating Libraries
2. Summer Vacation Schedules
3. E-mail on Summer Weekends
4. Summer staffing hours
5. Troubleshooting
6. Updating the blog
7. September promotional strategies

New Participating Libraries

Jeff Newman announced that Lisa Sherlock, Gabbi Zaldin and Alison Girling of the E.J. Pratt Library have joined the Digital Reference Project. Vikki Skelton at the Industrial Relations library has also expressed interest in joining the project.

Summer Vacation Schedules

A request for a listing of people’s holidays will be distributed via the blog and via the mailing list. This information will be used to compile a list of when people are away in an attempt to cover holes in the schedule in advance.

E-mail on Summer Weekends

A call for volunteers to check the VRL e-mail on the weekend will be sent out over the blog and over email. Anyone working a weekend shift over the summer is encouraged to sign up for a weekend slot.

Summer staffing hours

The committee suggested exploring the possibility of opening LiveHelp service at either 11:00 or 12:00 to catch more of the heavy morning traffic.

Troubleshooting

Jeff Newman announced that most of the outstanding software issues have now been resolved, though there is still an ongoing issue saving scripts. The conversation drifted from troubleshooting the software into feature requests. The committee will ask Docutek about future implementations of:

• Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP)
• A “user is typing a message” indicator
• A more effective/less intrusive method of indicating that there is a new message from a second patron when working with multiple patrons.

The committee also discussed initiating a re-evaluation of software that is on the market.

Updating the blog

1. Blog Content

The Committee discussed materials that would be useful for the blog. The discussion centred on which materials would be most useful for training new users including policy documents and training scripts.

2. Blog User Accounts

It was noted that several people who staff VRL do not yet have blog accounts. Jeff will look into this.

September promotional strategies

The committee discussed ways to promote the LiveHelp service. Suggestions included redesigning the LiveHelp Bookmark (the bright green slip) and redesigning the orange flyer that says “Home” in large letters.

June 2005
4-5 Chad
11-12
18-19 UTM Librarians (tentative)
25-26 Pam King

July 2005
2-3 Gail Nichol [added 2005-05-16]
9-10 Julie Hannaford [added 2005-05-17]
16-17 Pat Serafini (tentative)
23-24 Debbie Green [added 2005-05-17]
30-31

August 2005
6-7
13-14
20-21
27-28

Daily averages (questions answered):
Monday: 5.5
Tuesday: 4.8
Wednesday: 2.5
Thursday: 4
Friday: 3.8
Saturday: 2.8
Sunday: 1.8

Known issues:

1. Sending e-mail fails. LiveHelp’s e-mail client is not currently functioning. If you wish to reply to an e-mail you will need to use your normal e-mail client. [Docutek is working to resolve this problem 2005-04-25]Problem Resolved
2. Session transcripts are not getting saved. There is a long delay between the patron exiting a session and the exit questionnaire poping up for the librarian. When the questionnaire does pop up there is no text in the transcript. Problem Resolved
3. users using Macs or using an alternate browser (Mozilla, Opera, Firefox) will be forced into classic mode (page-push only). This will hopefully be resolved in a major upgrade expected in the next few weeks.

I analyzed 373 e-mail queries that were submitted through the LiveHelp service to see when we can best serve our existing user community. The pool of questions started off as 500 questions dating back to December 8, 2004 (that’s the largest number of questions I could display on a page) and eliminated questions that were submitted on weekends (n=124). I grouped the remaining questions by the time they were submitted and tried to find an “optimal” service window. The results surprised me.

Of the 373 questions submitted via e-mail:

• 130 were submitted between 9am and 1:00pm (34.85%)
• 247 were submitted between 9am and 7:00pm (66.22%)
• 92 questions were submitted between 7:00pm and midnight (24.66%)

(%’s are based on total number of e-mail questions received on a weekday – 373)
In other words, expanding our service into the morning rather than the evening would reach more of LiveHelp’s existing customers. This makes it easier to expand the service at UofT because it means asking people to volunteer for morning and afternoon shifts rather than for late evening shifts.

For the record, LiveHelp’s busiest time of day is between 12:00 and 1:00. That one hour time block accounts for 11% all email traffic. My suggestion is that the Digital Reference Committee begin exploring the possibility of expanding service into the morning, where there are already active LiveHelp users as well as a pool of staff rather then pushing into the night where there are fewer users and almost no staff.

Daily averages (questions answered):
Monday: 12.2
Tuesday: 8.6
Wednesday: 7.8
Thursday: 7.8
Friday: 5.2
Saturday: 3.8
Sunday: 1.2

Please choose from one of the following options (leave a comment with your vote)

1. Reduce hours after April 15

or

2. Continue 5-7 service through the summer.