Week 8: Answer boards and social searching

This provides an opportunity to highlight the question-answering skills of librarians to the wider community.

Is there a role for our library/librarians "slamming the boards"?
I can see how the cause of librarianship could benefit so long as those we successfully answered told the community and we could also use it for advertising perhaps.
The truth is at our library we need to use all our time for the needs of our clients and for the extension services we provide to our libraries, e.g. bookgroups, reader's advisory, events and other necessities.

In what ways might your customers like to rate or review items in the collection or services you offer?
A user-based approach to relevance. Could a library have a site like Yahoo answer or a response blog/wiki on the library website that customers of Information Services could write their appreciation, or otherwise, of the answers we provide? Perhaps this would be tricky to display. It could be a vehicle for malcontents.

I think the availability of social searching engines is very helpful to tap the collective knowledge of the community. I see it as a wonderful tool which I look forward to using the next time I'm asked if I can find the book set in Russia around the time of the Revolution with two teenage girls in it........