Minnesota Historical Society Joins AskMN

Carla Pfahl Minnesota Historical Society is the 40^th library or library system to participate in AskMN! This also goes nicely with the 40^th anniversary of CALCO. Minnesota Historical Society staff will bring an eclectic depth of knowledge about Minnesota history to the growing list of participating libraries. In FY13 AskMN added 10 libraries and in FY14 Minnesota Historical Society is the second library to join. With each new library participating in AskMN, the service has the opportunity to reach more patrons and provide them with in-depth assistance. You can find a current list of all the AskMN Libraries on the AskMN website. It would be great to see your library’s name among those participating! Contact Carla Pfahl at pfahl001@umn.edu to learn more about the benefits of joining the AskMN collaborative.  

AskMN FY13 Report

Carla Pfahl It is that time of year where I swim in a pool of numbers, statistics, charts, graphs, and tables as I pull together all the information for the AskMN fiscal year-end report. I have always found numbers to be very interesting. Honestly. I can tell you that we had our largest number of questions from Minnesota patrons in FY13: 28,396 to be exact. That is up 3.5% from FY12 (27,352). We also had the highest percentage of Minnesota libraries answering Minnesota patron questions from previous fiscal years (70%). We have worked throughout the year to match Minnesota patrons with more Minnesota librarians. While AskMN is part of the QuestionPoint 24/7 Reference Cooperative that assures that a librarian is available at all times whether from Minnesota or New York or Washington State, these “behind the scenes” tweaks are important. Making a direct connection with a patron says something to the patron that librarians really care about helping them find appropriate and quality information. That brings me to the other portion of the fiscal year-end report that is the true goldmine – the survey comments from Minnesota patrons. It’s fun to read through the comments. It’s great to hear that so many people love the service, find it valuable, and appreciate that ability that librarians are trained to do so well – find appropriate and quality information. I have come to appreciate the comments from patrons more and more over the years. I try to imagine people actually saying the words they write when they want to express what they think about the service. Not everyone writes a comment. It has to move a person to take that extra time to say what they feel. What is especially nice to see are the comments from people mentioning a specific librarian. Here is just a sampling of some of the comments from this past fiscal year:

Very helpful. And it is a Sunday night so I am glad for the help at a time when the libraries are closed. Would recommend the service to others!

Nikki really understood the oddities of the search system. However, she was able to guide me through the process of getting full access to articles that, on my own, I was unable to do. Thanks again, Nikki!

Jen was extremely courteous and helpful even though I had an unusual topic/request. A+!

Amy was great throughout the chat process!!! she really helped me find the article I was trying to find for loooong time. and she made it in a very nice manner without making me feel embarrassed.

Debra is by far your best employee, and she has thoroughly helped me with my project. I am recommending her to everyone I know! :)

Look for the full report on the Minitex website soon.