So I wasted some time playing Wordshoot,which was awesome. But then I started to feel guilty that I was sitting at my desk playing a video game, so I quit and headed to Yahoo Answers which seemed vaguely more work-related. I wasn't too surprised by the dumbness of the questions asked:
Club penguin?
i kno theres a cheat so that you can buy stuff but not spend your money. i kno i sound cheap but my friend needs to buy alot of stuff and i want to help her so please help me! ♥
But I was blown away by the quantity. Obviously people (esp young people) have got some questions! In 10 pages of questions, the oldest question was asked 5 minutes ago! The majority were unanswered and will probably remain that way. Who's going to scroll through pages and pages of questions in order to answer one? I did feel for this guy and considered replying, but I didn't want to go through the log-in process:
I need help with the college process?
alright, i have a couple questions:
1. How do you know whether or not you can get a full ride somewhere? Is it after you apply to the college, or do they tell you before so that you'll want to apply there? Do you have to ask them if you qualify for merit based scholarships?
2. Around what time should I ask my teachers to write letter sof recommnedation? And do you have to ask your principle and guidance counselor for one, or do they all do that themselves?
3. What are some good national clubs and organizations to join that look good on college applications?
I'm glad librarians "slam the boards" once a month and answer questions. I'll try and remember to check it out next month.
So what are we doing wrong that ref questions are falling while online questions are skyrocketing? How could we improve our marketing to reach those questioning citizens?
So I'm at the FVRL website and the "Ask a Librarian" button is in a really good location on the homepage. But then I click on it and I get this long list of fill in the blank questions, including my name, my contact info, my library...etc. We've already lost the majority (?) of young patrons looking for answers. And where's the librarian avatar (thank you, Manya!)? I'd love to see a place on the website where questions could be posted anonymously and answered by a FVRL librarian.
1 comment:
You've asked some excellent questions. I wonder if we need to do some marketing around the fact that we will answer any question, no matter how small or dumb-sounding. RefLine has answered so many of my dumb questions and won me some bets and I never hesitated to ask.
The problem is that people want quick answers to involved questions. I mean, that question about colleges is not easy and deserves serious study. How do we convince people of this?
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