by Carla Pfahl
Quick Summary
AskMN: The Librarian Is In! has published its FY19 Report and is now available on the Minitex website. This article features some highlights from this past year.
AskMN: The Librarian Is In! has published its FY19 Report and is now available on the Minitex website, http://minitex.umn.edu/Reference/AskMn.aspx. AskMN is a 24/7 statewide online information service made up of public and academic libraries from across Minnesota working in cooperation to provide help to Minnesota residents and students. Here are some highlights from this past year are:
The academic queue saw an overall increase in service of 20%. Usage for the academic queue has steadily increased since the service began but this is the largest increase in a single year of service.
The public queue saw a decrease in usage by 12% from the previous year. This can be attributed to the removal of the pop-up chat widget from the K12 databases in the ELM portal. K12 students were not using the pop-up widget in a beneficial way so it was removed.
AskMN’s overall usage decreased slightly by 7% from the previous year. Historically, AskMN has been in a level-off pattern with usage over the past 4-5 years with usage fluctuating slightly.
In the upcoming year AskMN will be migrating to a new platform using the Springshare product LibAnswers. We are excited for what this will bring to our libraries as there will be more customizable features while retaining the support of the 24/7 Reference Cooperative.
